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HEXAMETRICAL EXPERIMENTS 



OR A 



VERSION OF FOUR OF VIRGILS PASTORALS 

INCLUDING THE REPUTED PROPHECY RESPECTING THE MESSIAH 

DONE IN A STRUCTURE OF VERSE SIMILAR TO 

THAT OF THE ORIGINAL LATIN 

WITH HINTS TO EXPLAIN THE METHOD OF READING AND A SLIGHT ESSAY 
ON THE LAWS OF THE METRE 



Nunc te marmoreum pro tempore fecimus : at tu, 
Si fetura gregem suppleverit, aureus esto. 



ALOI 







LONDON 
WILLIAM PICKERING 

1838 



3> 



40 \, 



C. WH1TTINGHAM, TOOKS COUHT, CHANCERY I.ANE. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



In offering to the public the following version of Virgil's pastorals, 
my final purpose has been to promote the use of the classical . 
metres in our wide spread national language. No one I presume, 
who is familiar with their music, will deny that these metres are 
noble and sonorous in a high degree, and surely if the metres of our 
own fine tongue may be brought to make the same impressions 
upon the ear, a new and copious source of refined pleasure (for all 
now are readers) may be opened to the English name and nation. 

That this object really may be attained is, I think, not improbable ; 
it can, however, be attained only by something of that resolute enthu- 
siasm which in all ages has been necessary to give even to useful 
innovations their first hold in public estimation, that first hold, 
which once secured, ensures like the root of the young tree in the 
forest a slow but sure developement at last. To attain this object 
however sacrifices must be made : present praise must be bartered 
for prospective benefit ; neglect, contempt, and ridicule, the painful 
sense of the imperfection of first attempts, the certainty, nay, the 



vi ADVERTISEMENT. 

hope, that the more splendid success of others will ultimately 
eclipse and darken any little excellence which ourselves may attain, 
all this and more in these cases must be patiently undergone in the 
firm and cheering confidence that the glorious consummation will 
more than recompense at last. 

With the same view, that, I mean, of promoting classical metres, 
I have deemed it of utmost moment to make my lines as musical and 
sonorous as might be, and to this as another leading principle points 
of subservient importance have been conceded. On this account 
for example it is, that sacrificing precision to music, I have in the 
following pastorals taken liberties with the names : well managed 
they will be found no inconsiderable source of melody, and to the 
English reader it can make but little difference whether we say 
Galle or Gallus, Tityre or Tityrus, Melibaee or Melibaeus, though 
to the English metre the difference may be great. Even with the 
names of places I have ventured a little (though more cautiously), 
and I trust the reader, when the final purpose of the lines is con- 
sidered, without coldly condemning my terminations, will allow me to 
exclaim, 

' Parthia athirst the Arari shall drink Germania Tigri.' 
or, 

' Torn from the world or the oceanisle barbaric Britannia.' 

But methinks I hear a voice replying Halte la ! Do you not think 
that ' Barbaric Great Britain,' would be more correct ? Why, really 



-ADVERTISEMENT. Vll 

I do not. The greater the freedom of the poet the fairer his chance 

9 

of success. Poetry emanates from the feelings, and the free expression 
of the feelings ill brooks constraint. What Pope has said of one 
may, when properly understood, be said perhaps of all the com- 
motions of the mind, 

' Love light as air at sight of human ties, 
Waves his soft wings and in a moment flies.' 

and to the poet, the versifier though at humble distance is allied. 

For the same reason it is, to obtain I mean all the music I 
might that in the following version, words in a manner quaint or 
obsolete have been sometimes introduced. * Charms may sound 
more musically than ' verses,' or ' strains,' or ' songs,' for these 
words, therefore, and not without authority, the term charms has 
been hazarded. With the same view also for ' playing' I have some- 
times substituted ■ chiming ;' for ' behold' ' beholden ; ' for ' pipe' 
' recorder;' ' Dabitur que licentia sumpta pudenter:' on these occa- 
sions the reader I feel persuaded will not be too severe, for poets 
in all ages have been indulged with licences of this kind. 

Again — to help the music of the verse I have been induced 
to prefer a version to an original attempt, and a version of Virgil's 
lines, to those of any other Roman writer ; for like the summer moon 
of his own pure sky in sweetness and majesty, the Mantuan bard 
shines forth without a rival. The not unpardonable vanity of an 
author might have been more flattered and soothed by an endeavour 



Vlll ADVERTISEMENT. 

after some original effusion ; and so far as subject is concerned, the 
public taste might have been more highly gratified by a tale of the 
East than a song of the West, some love-sick lay of Laili and 
Majnun, or some corsair-like adventures of Lara and Kaled ; for 
what chance has Lycidas with Lalla Roukh, or Alphesibaeus with 
Sardanapalus ? But admiring as I do with an enthusiasm which I 
am not ashamed to acknowledge the concussive and soul-subduing 
poetry of the East, a poetry which seems to imbibe the sun-beams 
of the climate, and swell and ripen like its own luscious fruit, still 
I conceive we may turn with pleasure to the polished productions of 
the classical muse, as the eye which has been dazzled by the bril- 
liant and glowing flowers of the mid-day garden may repose at 
length with delight on the pure and beautiful forms of the fresh 
marble fountain, and contemplate with tranquil complacency those 
living streams which from its cool and noble basin spring upwards 
to the sky. Besides to relinquish all other considerations, one pa- 
ramount advantage recommends the classical literature to the 
English hexametrist. By choosing a classic for our subject we se- 
cure for ourselves the benefit of a Greek or Roman master, honest, 
placid, patient, but inexorable, one too who of necessity is ever at 
our side ; and inferior as it must be in the music, every English hex- 
ameter thus made has the advantage of being subjected to an ear 
prepared to judge, by a previous recitation of the melodious original. 
This of course helps to keep up the standard of the music : surely if 
any thing may enable us to determine whether or not the verse 



'ADVERTISEMENT. IX 

"•ring well," it is this. This then it is, and this only which has de- 
cided my choice of a subject. Exactness of version has not been 
my purpose, and into disputes about meanings I have generally for- 
borne to enter, for what the countryman said of his nightingale, 
may be truly said of these verses, ' vox et praeterea nihil,' the sound is 
all in all. Before then the critics condemn the subject in its selec- 
tion or execution let me beg them to bear these considerations equi- 
tably in mind. Let me also entreat them further to shew even more 
than their ordinary indulgence to those who labour in this field, and 
should they themselves be of opinion that ultimate success may 
crown these attempts, however rude at first, may I be allowed to 
hope, that instead of employing their formidable weapons of ridicule 
and sarcasm to expel the planter from the soil, they may rather feel 
inclined to foster and assist him by such encouragement and legis- 
lation as may ultimately be rewarded by a fruitful and most melli- 
fluous harvest : for 

Ungainly Ennius sang, ' Vdlentibu' cum magnis dis' 

Or ever the Mantuan bard ' Arma virumque cano.' 

To the classic next, I beg permission to suggest that in judging 
these hexameters it is necessary to bear in mind that the verse is 
not Latin, but English, English in its structure, as well as English 
in its language. The one great object throughout has been to pro- 
duce on the ear a perception of melody, similar as far as might be 
to that which arises from the noble measures of antiquity, and when 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



for this purpose the prosodial genius of our language has required a 
deviation from the classic model, a peculiar construction of the feet 
has been resorted to without hesitation. The end of the writer 
being English hexametrical music, and not the exemplification of 
Latin rules of prosody, or a pattern exhibition of dactyls and spon- 
dees, feet and syllables, though unclassical, have been used when- 
ever and wherever they seemed better fitted for producing the effect. 
It is true indeed that as far as might be the classical spondee and 
dactyl have been brought into the movement, and they, the dactyl 
especially, form the solid material and basis of the verse, but this 
use of the classical feet has been throughout a means not an end, 
adopted therefore not in conformity with the grammar, but in obedi- 
ence to the ear, for to this after all, (a most fastidious judge,) the ulti- 
mate appeal lies. 

Wherever then the English ear has been better or even as well 
pleased by the use of other feet, the pure spondee and dactyl have 
been unscrupulously set aside. Indeed to produce hexametrical 
music with English, and especially older and more genuine English 
words, a deviation from the classical models becomes continually 
more or less necessary, especially in primary attempts, and to this 
necessity I have given way. Hence the laws of the English hex- 
ameter, and the laws of the classical, are by no means identical, 
though the codes in good measure agree. To judge the English 
hexametrist therefore by the strict rules of the Roman or Grecian 
poet would be as unjust as severe. It is not by the tribunals of one 
country that the offences of another must be tried. 



ADVERTISEMENT, XI 

' In the subsequent pages will be found a few elementary hints 
respecting these distinguishing laws of the English hexametrical 
versification : the hints are few because they are designed merely to 
give a general notion of the subject, they are elementary because 
they are intended for those only who hitherto may have given no 
attention to the matter. And here in conclusion I feel myself called 
upon to make my full acknowledgments to those my predecessors, 
whether foreign or domestic, who may have laboured in this field, 
among whom in this country none stands more justly preeminent 
than Mr. Southey. A little playful and too personal humour was 
once seen to flicker about his versification, for the laurel itself is no 
Certain protection from the lightning ; but to his original labours the 
cordial thanks are due of every true lover of English hexametrics. 



T-»T-»H* A T-lTXn 



REMARK. 

With a view of obtaining more musick from other metrical qualities, the ' caesura' 
in the following verses has been wholly disregarded. Virgil himself has, to a 
certain extent, neglected the onerous rule of his predecessor, Theocritus, victus 
operis difficultute. Donuti Vita P. Virgilii. xxv. 



CORRIGENDA. 

P. v. 10th line, for " it can however be attained only," read " but it can be attained only." 

P. viii. 13th line from top, for " pure and beautiful forms," read " pure colours and beautiful forms." 

P. 30. 4th line from top, for " told and in vain," read " warn'd and in vain." 

4th line from bottom, for " pasture the fields, thy folds be enlarged," read " pasture the field, 
still widen the folding." 
P. 31. 9th line from top. Expunge full stop at the end of the line. 

13th line, for " turtles complaining," read " turtle complaining." 
P. 41. 4th line, variation, for " fold undisturbed," read " fold unabandoned." 

P. 43. last line, for " night's pale planet arose from the deeps of the ocean," read " night's pale planet 
advanced, rode high o'er the ocean." The planet does not rise, but goes down with the setting- 
sun. 
P. 68. 7th line from bottom, for " Delphos," read " Delphi." 
P. 78. 4th line from top, for " proscripsit," read " prascripsh." 



REMARKS 

ON THE METHOD OF LEARNING TO READ THE ENGLISH 

HEXAMETER, WITH A HINT OR TWO 

RESPECTING ITS USE. 




REMARKS 

ON THE METHOD OF LEARNING TO READ THE ENGLISH 

HEXAMETER, WITH A HINT OR TWO 

RESPECTING ITS USE. 

F or the uninitiated, perhaps the readiest method of acquiring the recitation 
and music of hexametrical verses is to hear them repeated by a good reader, 
and to rehearse them carefully afterwards under his judgment and correction. 
In this manner, I am persuaded, any reader of tolerable ear may be taught 
to recite, with propriety and fluency, in the course of twenty or thirty minutes ; 
but as an adequate instructor may not always be at hand, it becomes necessary 
to have recourse to other and more independent means of information. For 
this purpose, then, the English student should be aware, that the ear and the 
voice may be easily formed to the verse by reading aloud and alone with 
proper care and attention. In first essays of course difficulties will arise, and 
the learner will have to recite both slowly and carefully, with exact ob- 
servance of the longer and shorter syllables. By reiterating these attempts, 
however, he will soon begin to acquire a familiarity with the metre ; and 
when in this way a little fluency has been obtained, he may afterwards 
proceed to repeat the passages in a smoother and more flowing manner, 
endeavouring ultimately to enter with ease and spirit into his part, and 
pronounce the verses with all those appropriate and natural intonations 
which the character of the subject may suggest. Facility and fluency once 



4 REMARKS ON 

secured, the lines may then be read as easily and on the same general 
principles as any ordinary English metre ; and the novelty wearing away, 
and with it the oddity and strangeness of the versification, with which, after 
all, the ear is rather surprised than disgusted, this delicate organ will 
soon learn to discover and appreciate whatever melody the verses may 
contain. To perfect the reader, some insight into the laws of the metre 
may be useful ; on this subject, therefore, a few remarks are subjoined 
elsewhere. 

But, in introducing to the public metres of this kind, it is not so much 
from the unreadiness of readers, as the sprightliness of wits, that hinderance 
and danger are to be apprehended. As the men of brilliancy and point 
however though naturally malin, are rarely at heart morose, I do not despair 
of their being ultimately prevailed upon to shew some little hospitable mercy 
to these exotic productions. When so broad a butt is set up for ridicule, it 
is not to be expected that the quiver of that little lively daemon will be spared 
altogether, and yet after all, would it not be a pity for the sake of squandering 
a few wit-bolts to epigrammatize the hexameter quite out of the language ? 
" to get the foundered dactyls under weigh," and transfer to our continental 
neighbours or our transatlantic brethren the honor of recovering the melodies 
of ancient metre. Successfully reproduced, these melodies would open to the 
lovers of metrical music both new and copious sources of poetic pleasure. 
Nor is this all : advantages of homelier and more substantial nature seem 
likely to accrue. Thus (to look no farther,) even in its present state, might 
not the English hexameter be introduced into our schools with useful effect ? 
Read alternately with the classical passages, might not this hexameter assist 
the ear of the boy, and enable him to acquire a more prompt and clear per- 
ception of the melodies of classical versification ? To me at least, the affirmative 
seems not improbable, and the experiment may be easily made. Nor here too, 



ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 5 

* 

while touching on experiments, can I refrain from inquiring whether a good 
prologue in this hexametrical measure might not chance to take with the 
theatrical public ? What if for once, it should make a hit by its novelty, and fill 
the theatre with hisses, and the treasury-box with receipts. Osez. The new- 
fangledness of the thing might perhaps draw, though it were only to condemn ; 
the storm before the curtain might give rise to a little sunshine behind it, 
and a few persevering recitations of this kind would soon form the general 
ear to the verse, — I wish that Mr. Macready were of the same opinion. 



ELEMENTARY REMARKS 



ON THE 



STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH HEXAMETER YERSE. 



REMARKS 



ON THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH HEXAMETER VERSE. 



To the classic I fear the following hints will appear both tedious and 
superfluous, but it is not to the classic that they are principally addressed ; 
my purpose is rather to apply myself to those who, like the Greeks of old, 
have confined their studies to their own national literature, and who in 
consequence may feel the need of some few preliminary notions respecting 
that kind of verse which is here offered to their perusal. In the course of 
my remarks, observations have been made which to some may appear im- 
perfect, to others redundant, but my design it should be remembered has 
been to give not a formal dissertation, but a little elementary instruction, and 
of the two evils, where the dilemma seemed to present itself, I have chosen 
rather to be prolix than obscure. 

By this term verse, I would understand, a line of words so arranged as to 
give to the ear the pleasures of melody ; for like music, (the most refined of 
sensual gratifications), verse also possesses all the essential parts of which 
melody is composed. Between the music of a Mozart and the musick of 
Dryden, however, there is, we may observe, this essential difference ; that 
while the noble compositions of the opera or the oratorio move in the diatonic 
or chromatic scale, the music of versification flows from that other and far 

c 



10 REMARKS ON 

more stirring scale of sounds in which, under the influence of reason or pas- 
sion, the human voice ranges, whether our enunciation be formal or familiar, 
whether in other words we are declaiming in the theatre and the senate, or 
more agreeably engaged in the light and lively flow of chitchat conversation. 
Who has not felt, and with force too, the powers of this music, either 
amid scenic illusions, or in the more extensive and various drama of real life? 
Charmed by these accents, it is that language becomes irresistible, flashing 
and penetrating at once to the inmost recesses of the heart. To return, how- 
ever, from this digression ; in the following and similar verses — 

' Tityre you by the whispering beech in the shadow reposing ' 
' Thrice dread stable, slow those fates firm fix'd and for ever,' 
' Choir of Olympian Jove, Trinacrian muses awakening.' 

when the reading is good, the combination of the long and short syllables, 
to say nothing of the pauses, has, I conceive, no disagreeable or unmusical 
effect upon the ear, more especially if habituated to it ; and this effect 
becomes still more agreeable, if the lines be read with proper feeling in union 
with the passages from which they are here dissociated, and without which, 
the full measure of the harmony can scarcely be appreciated. 

Now, speaking generally, (for I omit fantastic exceptions,) all regular 
musical lines, or verses as they are technically called, admit of separation into 
certain subdivisions, much in the same manner as diatonic or chromatic music 
is divisible into bars. These subdivisions contain certain portions of the syl- 
lables or notes, (for when uttered by the voice notes in fact they are) and 
constitute what are called the feet : thus in each of the three following 
lines, the syllables may be scored off into separate portions, these portions 
each of them composing what in the language of the art is denominated the 
foot of the hexameter. 



ENGLISH HEXAMETERS, 1 1 

' Tityre | you by the | whispering | beech in the | shadow re|posing ' 
' Thrice dread | stable | slow those | fates firm | fix'd and for | ever ' 
' Choir of Olympian | Jove Tri|nacrian | Muses a|wakening.' 

To understand these feet, and indeed, generally, the feet of English versi- 
fication, we must bear in mind that, in relation to the time which their 
utterance requires^ the syllables of our language may be divided into four 
kinds, the long, the short, the double short, and the common ; measures 
which may be respectively marked by the following signs of notation 
(-, u, w, ^ ; ) as may be seen in the typography of the lines below. Thus for 
example, in the preceding lines : — 

' Tityre you by the whispering beech in the shadow reposing ' 
' Thrice dread stable slow those fates firm fix'd and for ever ' 
' Choir of Olympian Jove, Trinacrian Muses awakening.' 

all the syllables marked by the ( - ) are long, and further in the same lines, 

' Tityre you by the whispering beech in the shadow reposing' 
' Thrice dread stable slow those fates firm fix'd and for ever' 
' Choir of Olympian Jove Trinacrian muses awakening,' 

all the syllables marked with the ( « ) are short. 
— Again, in these lines — 

' Choir of Olympian Jove, Trinacrian muses awakening.' 

' Radiant a name more honoured beholds those volumes adorning,' 

the syllables ' ken,' and ' di,' respectively marked (w) are double shorts, and 
of such syllables or notes it would be easy to multiply examples. 

Thus it seems, that in the English language there are syllables of at least 
three different measures, the long, the short, and the double short; the 



12 REMARKS ON 

quaver, the semiquaver, and the demisemiquaver, in which source of music 
our language has a great advantage over the classical tongues of which the 
measures of the syllables are two only, the long and the short ; for the 
common immediately mentioned, must, in these languages, be referred to 
the one or the other, according as we pronounce, at length or briefly. 
Again in the lines which follow, instances are afforded of another or fourth 
syllable, the common as it is called, that is, the syllable which, without 
much offence to the ear, may be read with a longer or shorter utterance, 
as the music of the verse may require : 

' Pasiphaee deploring he mourns all mournful deploring.' 
' Nestor and inexorable Achilles again king of kings Agamemnon' 
' Deeds of heroic renown, high gests, great acts of the Father' 
' Tiphys again, starr'd Argo again, yet again those heroes.' 

' Enchanting he sang to the stars reverb'rant the vallies resounded ' 
' And that fair delicate bosom they deemed rough yoked for the furrow ' 
' Loose me my children he cried that ye might if ye would may suffice ye ' 
' Ancient of song how that dread bard Threician Orpheus. ' 

for in these lines the different syllables or words, ' de,' ' he,' ' king,' ' re, 
and ' that,' are long in one position of the verse, short in another, a quality 
which in metrical notation may be marked by the inverted sign (n) placed 
below the vowel. 

' Pasiphaee deploring he mourns all mournful deploring.' 

And in the same manner as the same syllable may be uttered short or long 
at our pleasure, (as in the examples given), so also other syllables may be 
made double short or short indifferently, a quality which might be indicated 
by the following sign, (m) if indeed this refinement of notation should be 



ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 13 

thought necessary. Thus then in the English language, it seems, there are two 
sorts of common syllables, the short and the long, and the double short and 
the short ; in which quality of its syllables, our language possesses a further 
advantage over the classical tongues, which, in place of two common 
syllables, have one only, the long and the short, for the syllable which may 
be either double short or short they want. 

Again, the combination of these syllables, long, short, double short, and 
common, constitutes what are called feet, of which, like other languages, 
our own presents many various kinds. Of these kinds the following three 
alone require notice in relation to the hexametrical versification ; the 
spondee, I mean, the dactyl and the choree, or trochee. 

The spondee, which sober as we are, is, however, by no means very 
frequent in our tongue, admits, nevertheless, of being divided into two 
kinds, which may be named respectively, the abrach and the mesobrach or 
the shortless, and the mid-short spondee. The abrach or shortless spondee, 
consists of two long or heavy syllables only, short syllables being excluded 
as indeed the name implies ; but the mesobrach or mid-short spondee (and 
hence its appellative) between the two longs, admits a short syllable. Thus 
in the following line of the Pollio. 

' Thrice dread | stable | slow those | fates firm | fix'd and for | ever." 
S. 2. S. 2. S. 2. 

The first, third, and fourth feet, are all abrach spondees, but in this line 
of the Silenus 

4 

' Whither her | course to the | desert she | sped and how | wretched on | pinions.' 

the fourth foot a spondee is a mesobrach, the intermediate syllable of which 
is to be read short or double short. Amphimacer is the classical name of 
this foot. 



14 REMARKS ON 

Our sign of the abrach is (- - or S. 2.), that of the mesobrach is (-"u- or 
S. 3.) In the following- hexameters the mesobrach is very rarely admitted. 

Of the dactyl on the other hand, in which our language abounds to 
exuberance, there are at least two kinds, the dibrach and the tribrach ; to 
which perhaps a third may be added, the polybrach, feet, which to use the 
terms of our own tongue, may be distinguished respectively as two-short, 
three-short, or many-short dactyls. 

The two-short or dibrach dactyl, is a foot composed of three syllables only, 
of which one is long and heavy, and the other two are short and light. Thus 
in the following line, 

' Tityre | you by the | whispering | beech in the | shadow re|posing ' 

D. 3. D.S. D. 3. D. 3. D.3. 

the five first feet are all dibrach dactyls, consisting of one long note and two 
shorter, and may be signified by the following sign : 

(-uo or D. 3.) 

By the tribrach dactyl again, I mean a dactyl composed of four syllables, 
namely, one long, and three shorter, of these three shorter syllables, one 
being a single short, and the other two, double shorts, or rather of these three 
syllables, each being of equal time, (like three quavers in music, for example, 
with the three and the brace over them,) for so perhaps it may be found to be 
on a critical examination. 

Thus in the following line : — 

' Echoing resound to the world's great Lord not unhonor'd resounding/ 
' echoing re' may be solved as a tribrach dactyl, consisting of two double 

coco 

shorts and one short ; ' Echoing re|sound ;' or as a tribrach dactyl, with 
three short syllables of intermediate and equal measure, and which may be 



ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 15 

marked respectively below the vowel thus, ^ as shewn below. The latter 

reading I would myself prefer — ' Echoing relsound.' 

en n 

The symbol of this dactyl according to the solution of it varies, being 
O O O or-wwuor-uwa>orwuw. In the literal form, (D. 4.) 

By the many short or polybrach dactyl, I mean those dactyls the short 
syllables of which, exclusive of the redundants, exceed three in number. 
These dactyls should be composed of one long or heavy syllable, and four 
double shorts or very light ones, and may be noted thus, - w w w w or P, I). 

' Nestor and inexorable A|chilles again King of kings Agamemnon ' 

P.D. 

'Earth, the im|measurable a|byss of the Heavens diaphanous air.' 

P.D. 

no better examples of feet of this kind occur to me at the moment ; but from 
the nature of our language, they may, I am persuaded, be used occasionally 
without offence to the ear, nay, perhaps with the effect of communicating an 
additional grace to the verse. 

Again, like the dactyl above mentioned, the choree or trochee, for it has 
received both names, is in our language every where met with, whether in 
studied or conversational English. This foot consists of a long and short 
syllable, and may be marked thus : ( - u ). In the lines for instance, so often 
cited : 

' Tityre | you by the j whispering | beech in the | shadow re|posing ' 
' Thrice dread | stable | slow those | fates firm | fix'd and for | ever.' 

' posing,' and ' stable,' are clearly chorees. 

Now the English hexameter used in the following version, as the reader- 
may have remarked already, is composed of feet, in number six, 



16 



REMARKS ON 



' Tityre | you by the | whispering | beech in the | shadow re|posing ' 

13 3 4 5 6 

' Thrice dread | stable | slow those | fates firm | fix'd and for | ever ' 

1 2 3 4 S 6 

' Choir of | Olympian | Jove Tri|nacrian | Muses a| wakening,' 

and these six feet, with the restrictions presently given, may be indifferently 
spondees, dactyls, or even chorees, as may best please the ear ; to soothe 
and flatter which is the main object of all versification. Thus in the line, 

' Tityre | you by the | whispering j beech in the | shadow re| posing ' 

with the exception of the last, a choree, all the feet are dactyls ; but in this 
line 

' Thrice dread j stable | slow those | fates firm | f Ix'd and for | ever ' 

1 3 4 

the spondees predominate ; the first, third, and fourth feet being of this kind, 
and the second and last feet chorees, feet which in reciting English verse may, 
by a little humouring of the voice, be made to partake a good deal of the 
spondaic character, and produce much of the same effect upon the ear. But 
in this line, 

' Tiphys a[gain, starr'd | Argo a|gain, yet a|gain th5se | heroes ' 

we have an equal mixture of spondee and dactyl, three of the feet being of 
one kind, and three of the other. 

Of these feet, however, in all their different kinds, dactyls, spondees and 
chorees all are not equally fit for the verse. Thus dibrach dactyls and abrach 
spondees, furnish the best elements for the movement ; the mesobrach, tri- 
brach, and polybrach are admissible indeed, but admissible with caution ; 
and even the choree itself, except in the sixth foot, must not be heard very 
frequently, though, on the whole, by no means offensive to an English ear. 



ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 17 

Again, on the indifferent use of the feet thus selected, there are certain 
special restrictions founded not I conceive in caprice, but in a careful obser- 
vation of those falls and cadenzas, with which the ear is most pleased. Thus 
the last or sixth foot of the verse should generally be either a spondee or 
choree (the choree is most common) yet a dactyl is not wholly inadmissible 
even in this place ; indeed if I am not greatly mistaken, it sometimes gives 
an additional charm to the verse. Thus, (to begin with the spondaic or 
choraic close) in the following lines, 

' Tityre you by the whispering beech in the shadow reposing ' 

— ' posing ' is a choree. 

' Tiphys again starred Argo again yet again those heroes ' 

1 heroes ' is a spondee — and examples of this kind abound ; but in the line 
which follows — 

' Not on iEmonian rocks more sweet Rhodopeian Orpheus' 

' Orpheus ' may be read tri-syllabically as a dactyl (Orpheus) and forms I 
think a finer ending than the choree ' Linus' which might be read in its place. 
Further, the general law of the metre requires a dactyl in the fifth place. 
Thus in the line — 

' Tityre you by the whispering beech in the shadow reposing ' 
the fifth foot is a dactyl — so also in the following, 

' Thrice dread stable slow those fates firm fix'd and for ever ' 
' Mournful he paused then oh ye swains of Arcadia mournfully ' 

• fix'd and for ' and ' cadia ' are both two-short dactyls, the latter a fine one 

D 



18 REMARKS ON 

From this general rule, however, exceptions occur, sometimes made for the 
mere sake of variety, and sometimes to produce a more solemn fall in 
the close. 

' Tiphys again, starr'd Argo again, yet again those heroes,' 

— ' gain those ' is a spondee. 

With respect to the choree (which with the spondee and dactyl furnishes 
the principal notes of the verse ;) it may be well to observe that in the sixth 
or last place, it may be used with perfect freedom without in the least offend- 
ing the ear ; nay like the feminine rhimes of the French, or our own beautiful 
double endings, it seems rather to grace and soften the line than to impair its 
melody. But though admissible enough in the sixth place, in any of the five 
preceding bars, this foot must be tried with great reserve and severity, and 
not without frequent examination and reference to the ear, to which in all 
cases the ultimate appeal lies, for good verses like good coins will always ring 
well. Dactyls and spondees in the English, as well as the classical hexa- 
meters, seem after all to be the best feet, and will be found on trial to furnish 
the most fitting materials at least for the first five bars of the verse. 

But to proceed — Of feet considered in relation to the union of syl- 
lables which compose them, there are two varieties, the dissever-syllabic, 
and the unsevered-syllabic, the difference of which may be best illustrated by 
example. By dissever-syllabic feet, I understand those feet which in whole, 
or in part, are formed by fragments of a word, certain syllables to form the 
word being dissevered from the rest, but unsevered-syllabic, or, as I would 
rather call them, unsever-syllabic feet, are feet which neither in whole, nor in 
part, are formed by fragments of words, so that in the formation of the foot, 
the syllables remain unsevered ; thus for example, in the line already quoted, 

' Choir of 0|lympian ] Jove Trilnacrian | Muses a|wakening ' 



ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 19 

all the six feet are dissever-syllabic, for they all of them contain fragments of 
words metrically disjoined. But in this line now so familiar to us, 

' Tityre|you by the|whispering|beech in the|shadow re|posing,' 

the four first feet are unsever-syllabic, the continuity of the words not being 
dissolved to form them. Should a still more exact nomenclature be required, 
we may give the name of part-sever-syllabic to the feet which are formed in 
part of entire words, and in part of dissevered syllables, or portions of words. 
In the line above cited for example, 

' Choir of Olympian | Jove Tri|nacrian | Muses a|vvakening ' 

1 2 3 4 5 6 

the first, third, and fifth feet are part-sever-syllabic, and so may be called; but 
such minute exactness seems scarcely to be required. And thus, taking the 
distinction from the feet, the verses also themselves may be called dissever- 
syllabic, unsever-syllabic, or mixed, according as they consist purely of 
dissever-syllabics, unsever-syllabics, or part-sever-syllabics, or of feet of two 
or three of the kinds combined. It requires but little ear to perceive that 
where other qualities are equal, the dissever-syllabic verses are the most 
melodious and flattering, the mixed verses range next in melody, and the un- 
sever-syllabic verses, if so they may be called, are generally speaking the 
least musical of all. English hexameters are ordinarily of the mixed kind. 
In its unreadiness to furnish dissever-syllabic feet it is, that the monosyllabic 
and dissyllabic nature of our older and more solemn language is most pain- 
fully felt ; but I forbear to enlarge here. 

Besides the regular syllables of the English hexameter, there enters into 
its composition a syllable of great metrical importance, which may be called 
the redundant or grace note ; more frequently a double short, more rarely a 
short, to be marked below the vowel thus (i). This redundant, which far 
from roughening, often in the English gives additional and vernacular grace 



20 REMARKS ON 

to our verses, partakes a little of the nature of the appoggiatura or grace note, 
not to say of the cadenza of ordinary music. In the following hexameters 
examples of this note continually recur. Generally one redundant only is ad- 
mitted ; more rarely two. It may find itself a place in all parts of the line, 
but most readily I think in the commencement or the close. The following 
verses are examples — 

• 
' Radiant a name more honoured beholds those volumes adorning,' 

' Awakening the rocks to my woes sole skilled in the dirge and the ditty.' 

' di ' and ' ken ' are double short redundants, 

' Mournful he paused, then oh ye swains of Arcadia mournfully.' 
' ly,' is a short redundant, or we may scan this as a dactylic close. 

' Fugitive him to Gortynian stalls where heifers are brooding,' 
' Or in that vast herd.' 

■ or' and ' in,' are both double short redundants : here two redundants occur 
together without, I think, offending the ear — 

' Mournful he paused, then oh ye swains of Arcadia mournfully,' 
' Awakening the rocks.' 

Here, as in the former instance, two redundants ' ly ' and ' a' again meet on 
the ear, though typographically disjoined. Throughout the following verses 
these redundants have sometimes been used for ornament, and sometimes, 
I acknowledge, to facilitate the labour of versification. In recitation they 
must be touched with a light and flying utterance, the time being borrowed 
from the syllables between which they lie. 

And here farther it may be well to remark, that this redundant note, 



ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 21 

found more or less in all the best forms of English versification, enables 
us, in part, to explain some of the distinguishing peculiarities of the hexa- 
metrical verse, as formed for the English ear, and distinguished from the 
hexameter of the classick. Thus the redundant it is that in some instances, 
at least, gives rise to the mesobrach or mid-short spondee, as well as to those 
remarkable dactyls, the tribrach and polybrach, three feet, which do not 
appear in the Latin hexameter. 

In the following lines for instance, 

' Wide spread ripening slow spontaneous harvests abounding/ 

' Harrowing the ocean the bark shall be seen, seen bulwark and bastion.' 

The mesobrach spondees ' ripening,' ' taneous,' ' basti5n,' are in truth nothing 
more than the classical abrach or shortless spondee, with a redundant inter- 
posed between the two long syllables, and in these lines — 

' Blossoming for | thee shall bloom like the rose in the rise of the morning.' 
* Harrowing the | ocean the bark shall be seen seen bulwark and bastion.' 
' Nestor and inexorable Alchilles again king of kings Agamemnon.' 

P.D. 

' Earth the im| measurable a|byss of the heavens the fathomless ocean.' 

P.D. 

The tribrach dactyls in the first two lines may be reduced to dibrachs, by 
reckoning in each the first short syllable as a redundant, and the polybrachs 
in the last two lines are also reducible to dibrachs by shaking off as redundant 
the syllables first and third. Thus pronouncing with velocity the apostro- 
phied syllables we may read, 

Bloss'ming for | thee 

Harr'wing the | ocean 

Nestor and in|ex'rabl' Alchilles 

Earth th' imlmeas'iabl' a|byss of the 



22 REMARKS ON 

but on this point I forbear to enlarge. To mark the redundancies two signs 
may be used, when the redundant syllable is to be specially indicated we 
may place a dot below its vowel, thus, (radiant), and when we merely wish to 
intimate generally that the foot contains redundancies, without determining in 
which of the syllables the redundancy lies, we may place two dots below the 
vowel of the long syllable, thus signifying the redundancy without deter- 
mining its seat ; for the redundant is never in the long syllable itself. 

Pollio a|rises majestic. 

The laws of the metre being known, it is by no means difficult to discover 
the boundaries of each foot, pronounce it separately, and subjoin its name ; and 
this it is which constitutes what in the language of the art is called ' scan- 
ning' or ' scansion.' Take for example the line so often recurring — 

' Tityre you by the whispering beech in the shadow reposing.' 

In scanning we should read it thus : ' Tityre,' dactyl; ' you by the,' dactyl; 
' whispering,' dactyl; ' beech in the,' dactyl; ' shadow re-,' dactyl; ' posing," 
choree — or this line, 

' Thrice dread stable slow those fates firm fix'd and for ever.' 

'Thrice dread,' spondee; 'stable,' choree; 'slow those,' spondee; 'fates 
firm,' spondee ; ' fix'd and for,' dactyl; ' ever,' choree. 

Setting aside the other advantages of the exercise, it is from scansion we 
learn to ascertain with exactness the structure of a verse, its spondees, 
chorees, dactyls, and redundants ; its dissever-syllabic, and unsever-syllabic 
feet ; and thus by scanning in ambiguous instances we are enabled to decide 



ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 23 

with exactitude in what manner the verse should be read. To score off 
the feet by vertical bars, as in musical notation, (see the examples above 
cited,) gives more perspicuity to scanning; and the operation becomes still 
clearer, if we write respectively the names below the feet. 

Before dismissing the subject, I cannot forbear remarking, that for the 
due measure of the syllables much must depend upon the taste of the reader ; 
for the time or measure of each note is not in our language defined with the 
same exactness as in the Latin and the Greek. Within limits, the length of 
the English syllables may be humoured, protracted upon the one hand, or 
shortened upon the other, and advantage may be sometimes taken of this to 
give more fully and roundly the hexametrical pronunciation. 

I may add too, that as a general rule, so far as may be without affectation, 
the voice in reading the line should flow in one continuous stream, in lines 
without pauses, from one end to the other, in lines with pauses, from stop to 
stop. An example of the first we have in the line now familiar, 

' Tityre you by the whispering beech in the shadow reposing; ;' 

and examples of the second may be every where observed, 

' Eros is Lord, Almighty he reigns, let us bend and adore him.' 
' Choir of Olympian Jove, Trinacrian muses awakening.' 

In a word, the style of the declamation must flow in the andante move- 
ment, in that movement I mean so beautifully illustrated by the musician, as 
in the well known passage of Mozart's sublime opera, II don Giovanni, for 
example, the ninth movement of the second act ; and hence it follows, that 
although he know the feet of the line with critical accuracy, the reader must 
not by pausing mark the boundary of each foot ; in other words he must not 



24 REMARKS ON 

scan the verses, for reading is one thing, scanning is another. To break the 
lines into feet by the intermittent scanning recitation is highly offensive to 
the ear, more especially if the verses be dissever-syllabic. A few experi- 
ments will, I think, at once illustrate and demonstrate the truth of these 
remarks. Who, for example, could bear with an affected declaimer who 
should read his line — 

' Eros is — lord al — mighty he — reigns let us — bend and a — dore him V 

The effect is intolerable ; but if, instead of being broken by the intermittent 
recitation, the voice stream onward uninterrupted, except by those pauses 
which not the sound requires but the sense, the line, before, so disfigured 
resumes at once whatever smoothness and beauty it possesses, as the surface 
of the water regains its placidity when no longer disturbed by pebbles from 
the boys upon the bank. 

In conclusion I may observe, that these verses are called hexameters, 
because though differing in structure from the hexameters of antiquity, to 
these, nevertheless, they bear a strong though coarse general resemblance : 
they are, too, further distinguished as English hexameters, not merely because 
their language is English, but because, moreover, their structure and laws 
deviating from the classical canons, may be looked upon as English too. 
The word hexameter is derived from the Greek ' hexametron,' for ' hex,' in 
that language, signifies ' six,' and ' metron ' signifies ' measure ;' so that by 
hexameter verses are meant six-measured, or rather six-footed verses, and 
such in fact these verses are. In this metre it is, but in its commanding 
and more sonorous forms, that the classical epics of antiquity have been 
composed ; indeed the first line of the iEneid flows in the same channel as the 
first line of our version of the Pollio, and to a stranger unacquainted with 
both languages, the well known 



ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 25 

' Anna virumque cano Trojae qui primus ab oris.' 

rolls on the ear with the same kind of undulation as the 

' Choir of Olympian Jove, Trinacrian muses awakening.' 

The unequal merit of the verses in the two languages is but too manifest, 
but the general resemblance remains, as the marble forms of a Praxiteles may 
be reproduced by the modern Italian, though in models of Parisian plaster. 



E 



THE 



FIRST PASTORAL; OR, TITYRUS. 



THE ARGUMENT.* 

The occasion of the first pastoral was this : When Augustus had settled himself in the 
Roman empire, that he might reward his veterans for their past service, he distributed 
among them all the lands that lay about Cremona and Mantua ; turning out the right 
owners for having sided with his enemies. Virgil was a sufferer among the rest ; and 
having afterwards recovered his estate by Maecenas's intercession, as an instance of 
his gratitude, he composed the following pastoral ; where he sets out his own good 
fortune in the person of Tityrus, and the calamities of his Mantuan neighbours in the 
character of Melibaeus. 

■ The arguments of these pastorals are from Dryden's Virgil ; a few verbal changes 
excepted. 



(B) 



THE FIRST PASTORAL; 



TITYRUS. 



Remark. — In the following lines throughout, the mark (-) indicates the long and heavy syllable ; 
(o) indicates a short syllable; ( •• ) below the vowel shews that in the foot there is redun- 
dancy; and (.) below the vowel marks the redundant syllable. Throughout the lines also 
every syllable, above which neither the long (-) nor short mark (o) appears, is either a short 
or a double short. 



MELIB.-EUS. TITYRUS. 

M. Tltyre you, by the whispering beech, in the shadow reposing ;(l) 
Warbling the woodland muse, wind sweetly the slender recorder ; (2) 
We from our own dear home, sweet fields ! from the land of our fathers (3) 
Scattered fly ; happy, swain ! while you, by the freshet reclining, 
r> Caroling resound Amarlllida bright to the wild and the woodland. (4) 

T. Oh ! Melibaie, ador'd be the power, for ever adored, 
Hallowing the stillness around ; to that power betimes in a morning, (5) 
Reddening the shrine shall the lamb from my fold full frequent be burning- 
He, as you behold, bid my pasturing herd still range and the shepherd 
10 Wanton at will on rebeck and reed to the dirge and the ditty. (6) 

M. Believe me, my friend, unreplning I view though not unadmlring ; 
Such is the hubbub around : 16 ! I wayworn and aweary, 
On with my flock ; this struggling aback, this, Tltyre, yeaning 
Tltyre, this, cruel chance ! on the flints in the coppice bemoaning, 
10 Pouring her young, twin hope of the fold, there leaves and to perish. 



30 THE FIRST PASTORAL; OR, T1TYRUS. 

Often, but blinded is man, yon ravens the 111 that awaited 
Hoarse on the left from the doddered holm full plainly foreboded. 
Oft the Dodonian oak, thunderstruck in the forest around us, (7) 
Told and in vain ; but, Tltyre, tell, that spirit adored, 

20 Guard of the field and the fold, oh friend ! to mine ear be revealed. 
T. That huge town call'd Rome, silly I, Melibaie, believed, 
Dolt that I was, like Mantua fair, whither wont in a morning 
Hinds wi' the lambs hie forth from the fold by forest or fountain ; 
KIdllngs thus, and the goats I beheld, and the hound and the houndling 

25 Alike in the make ; wonder were not the greater and small I compared. 
Vainly, for Rome, magnificent R5me ! by the cities around her 
Towers in the 16ft, over bramble and brake, as the cedar is towering. (8) 
M. Well, but the journey to Rome what weighty affair then occasion 'd ? 
T. Liberty, friend ; when shaggy my beard fell gray in the shearing, (9) 

30 Gracious, at length, sweet liberty smll'd on her reckless adorer : (10) 
What time blythe Amarlllida charm'd Galatlllis abandon'd : 
True ; for, abash'd I allow, while flaunt Galatlllis inflam'd me 
Lazy I llv'd, and my thraldom and thrift were alike unregarded : 
Choice of my dairy though many a cheese forth went to the market, 

35 Many a bull to the shrine, dear bought from my verdant enclosure ; 
Bootless was all; never burden'd with coin to my cot I returned. (li) 
M. So then for this, Amarlllida sad ! those sorrows were flowing ! 
Mellowmature when the fruit on the boughs undisturb'd in the orchard 
Perish'd, 'twas this ! happy swain ! thee, Tltyre, freshet and fountain, 

40 Tltyre, thee the remurmuring pine, thee Echo resounded. 

T. Blame not, my friend, while here I remain'd ever hopeless of freedom, 
Princes and powers propitious were there, there dread dominations. 
There, Melibaee, the youth I beheld, whose altars exhaling 
Incense 6ft in my field shall arise at the solemn oblation ; 

45 Bending benign there first to my prayer these words he returned ; 
Shepherd secure still pasture the fields ; thy folds be enlarged. 

M. Fortunate th5u ! thrice fortunate thou J aged friend ! unassailed 
Meadow and marsh then are thine ; what th5ugh, where wander the waters (12) 
Fattening the fen reeds wave ; th5ugh bare, where the slope is ascending, 



THE FIRST PASTORAL; OR, TITYRUS. 31 

50 Whiten the flints — 'tis home ! thy home, happy swain ! and suffices. 
Not in thy walks shall pasturage strange breed strange alteration, (13) 
Sickening the dams of the fold : malign when infection is raging, 
Not in thy walks shall the neighbouring flSck spread wide desolation. 
Fortunate thou ! thrice fortunate thou ! by freshet or fountain, (14) 

55 Rlllet or hallowed brook, undismay'd, where woodlands embowering 
Shelter the noon, thou still, happy shepherd ! at ease may repose thee. 
Here shall the favorite hedge, thy flowery border, exhaling 
Feast of the bees Hyblaian sweets, blooming still undisturbed. (15) 
Lull ; and with low and remurmuring sound soothe sweetly to slumber : 

60 There amid his vines, on the neighbouring rock, shall the dresser rejoicing- 
Carol aloud like the lark in the loft, salluting the morning. (16) 
Mourn meanwhile in the aery elm yon turtles complaining, (17) 
And those pet pigeons, the birds that you love, coo still and for ever. 
T. True, Melibaee, and beasts in the air, and fish in the ocean ; 

65 Those, nor unsated, shall pasture at large, these thirst nor appeased ; 
Wandering remote from lands far away, nor longer asunder, 
Parthia athlrst the Arari shall drink, (18) Germania TIgri, (19) 
E'er from my heart that Image benign those looks be effaced. 

M . We, but alas ! ah we ! to Numldian deserts may wander ; (20) 

70 To Scythia we, or roaring amain Rhadamantine Oaxes;(2l) 
Torn from the world or the Oceanlsle barbaric Britannia. (22) 
Ah ! shall it ever be mine to revisit the land of my fathers ; 
Low on the levelled ear when the thatch o'er the barley is peering; (23) 
Ever, alas ; on my own dear cottage again shall I gaze me ' 

75 What! shall my field, my so flourishing field, fall a prey to the soldier ! 
My harvest to barbarous hands ! Oh friends, civil discord abounding, 
See where it leads, (24) by what hSrdes ! by what hordes are our meadows invaded 
Then marshal the vine on the hills, Melibaie ; the fruits in the orchard 
Graft — hence, once happy flock, hence away ; in the greentrellic'd grotto, 

80 Lolling at large, ah me ! never more it will be mine to behold ye 
Hanging aloft where the aery steep in the azure reposes. 
Sllenc'd for ever my song ! not by me ! not by me ! to the mountain 
Led ; on the roughening shrub shall ye browze or the savory willow ! 



32 THE FIRST PASTORAL; OR, T1TYRUS. 

T. Pity ! but here, on a grass-green couch, this night undisturbed 
85 Quiet at least may be thine; rathe-ripes, some few in my store-room (25) 
Mellow ; and chesnuts, and milk newly press'd on my board are abounding. 
Come, from the neighbouring turrets the smoke in the distance arises, 
And, lengthening apace, from the towery Alps see shadows descending. 



THE 



FOURTH PASTORAL; OR, POLLIO. 



THE ARGUMENT. 

The poet celebrates the birth-day of Salonius, born in the consulship of his father, 
after the taking of Salonse, a city of Dalmatia. Many of the verses are translated 
from one of the Sybils, who prophecy of our Saviour's birth. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

In the following version, I have ventured to Hebraize a little, and but a little ; my 
reasons for so doing are assigned in note (34) annexed to this eclogue. Of the ver- 
sification, also, it may be right to remark that I have endeavored to communicate to 
it a little of the epic dignity, how far I may have succeeded, it is not for me to decide. 
Verses of this kind might help to prepare the artist for the translation of the iEneid, 
but till the metre is more perfected, I conceive it is better to abstain from the daring 
attempt. 



Remarks. — In the following three pastorals, the hyphen at the close of the line indi- 
cates that the two hexameters between which it is interposed, may be read into each 
other without the interruption of the usual pause at the end of the verse, as if the two 
taken together formed a single line only, see the example below ; verses of this kind 
may be called ' coupled hexameters.' Thus : 

" Gracious to all, then statelier sing, and the wild, and woodland - 
Reechoing resound to the globes great Lord ; not unhonored resounding." 

ought to be read ; 

" Gracious to all then statelier sing and the wild and the woodland reechoing resound to the globes 
great Lord not unhonoured resounding ;" and so with the rest. 

Of the names, too, whether personal or geographical, it may be well to remark, that 
throughout the pastorals they will be better read with the Italian pronunciation of the 
vowel a, especially when that vowel is long, and the same rule may be extended to all 
the other words in which the pronunciation of this vowel is not irrevocably fixed : thus, 
for example, in the words Trinacrian, Sandaracha, Sarranian, the long a is to be pro- 
nounced, not like the " a" in " may" but, like the " a" in " rather." 



(C) 

THE FOURTH PASTORAL 



OR, 



POLLIO. 



Ch5ir of Olympian Jove, (26) Trlnacrian Muses, awakening, (27) 
Rise to a loftier strain ; nor the meads,, nor the lilies and roses (28) 
Gracious to all, then statelier sing, and the wild, and the woodland - 
Reechoing resound to the gldbes great Lord ; not unhonor'd resounding. (29) 
5 Sung by the wizard of old, the worlds vast age is accomplishing : (30) 
Orb upon orb huge rolling the long-drawn aira commences : (31) 
Returns Astraea to man ; Satfirnian peace is returning ; (32) 
Down from the Heaven of Heavens a race new born is descending ; (33) 
Only thou ! auspicious the babe, in whom, Iron no longer - 

10 The age, on the world's wide waste all g5lden a race is arising, 
Virgin of Heaven defend — thou Lord omnipotent reignest! (34) 
With thee too, thee, this glory of the earth, this regeneration 
Pollio arises ; majestic the months processive revolving, 
Consul, with thee (34. b.): nor all Impious sin, still lingering, longer - 

15 Dismaying mankind, may o'ershadow the world in darkness and sorrow. 
He among Gods aye throned, a God ; among demigods heroes 
Mingling, Heaven on earth shall behold ; (35) nor himself unbehelden (36) 
This great globe ever govern in peace, in the glory of the father. (37) 
Firstlings for thee, fair boy ! gay gifts from her bosom effusing, 

20 Fragrance and flowers the odorous earth, yea rich cinnamomum, (38) 
Nard, and the evergreen Ivy shall yield, and the laughing acanthus. 



36 THE FOURTH PASTORAL; OR, POLLIO. 

Then shall the klne unbidden at eve home wend to the dairy ; 
Lions huge no more shall appal ; and the cradle rejoicing, 
Blossoming for thee, shall bloom as the rose, in the rise of the morning. 

25 Perish shall the adder; the envenomed herbs dire treacherous poison 
Perish ; the Assyrian Amomum adorn the wild and the woodland. 
Deeds of heroic renown, high gests, great acts of the father, 
Soon as thine opening spirit shall attend, to virtue attending ; 
Wide spread ripening sl5w, spontaneous harvests abounding, 

30 Clustering grapes, rich grapes shall be ours, on briar and bramble 
Luscious ; and the unwedged oaks, thy gift, fresh honey distilling. 
Sin spot still nathless shall remain not whSlly effaced : (40) 
Harrowing the Ocean the bark shall be seen ; seen bulwark and bastion (41) 
Fencing the town ; seen earth still torn by ploughshare and furrow. 

35 TIphys again, starred Argo again, yet again those heroes, (42) 
Men of renown, and Iason shall arise, Neptunian Tlium, 
Nestor, and inexorable Achilles, again King of Kings Agamemnon. (43) 
After in full grown years, when manhood's strength is accomplished ; 
Argosy more, nor mariner more, nor shrewd supercargo (44) 

40 Trading shall traverse the deep ; everywhere every want shall be warded. (45) 
Harrow no longer shall hurt in the field, nor hook in the vineyard : 
Oxen and yoke shall the hind large limbed set free from the furrow : 
Borrowed dye no more shall beguile, nor tlnct of the dyer ; - 
But turmeric bright shall the lambkin adorn ; yea. the Indian Arnata - (46) 

45 Enrobe as it feeds ; and the ram's rich fleece, untouch'd in the meadow, 
Purpling shall beam Sarranian red, and the rich Sandaracha. 
Thrice-dread, stable, slow, those fates, firm flx'd, and for ever, 
Hurrying the ages, haste hasten exclaim as the spindle is whirling. (47) 
Rise ! all glorious rise ! day dawns ; thy godhead assuming, 

50 Offspring of heaven arise ! oh son ! great Image of the father ! (48) 
See, this huge round world, this world at thy coming is moved ; 
Earth, the immeasurable abyss of the heavens, the fathomless Scean ; 
Yea, this world, and the powers therein sing aloud at thy coming (49) 
Mine, oh ! mine be the measure of years, the divine inspiration 

55 Mine, those glorious deeds to record, not unworthy recording : 
Loftier not thy statelier strain, Threi'cian Orpheus, 



THE FOURTH PASTORAL; OR, POLLIO. 37 

Linus, nor thine should resound ; though theMuse, though the godhead abounding, 
Calliope should her Orpheus aid, lov'd Linus Apollo. - 
Ador'd by the shepherds though Pan (50) may contend, Arcadia awarding ; - 
60 Arcadia awarding, the palm shall resign Pan shepherd-adored. 
Begin, then, beautiful boy ! thy lovelier mother beholding 
Smiling to own, (51 ) full fondly for thee all sSrrows enduring : - 
Begin, then, beautiful boy ! Oh smile ! nor, thy manhood maturing, 
Hebe her charms, nor Jove shall deny those feasts of the Godden.(52) 



THE 



SIXTH PASTORAL; OR, SILENUS. 



THE ARGUMENT. 

Two young shepherds, Chromis and Mnasylus, having been often promised a song by 
Silenus, chance to catch him asleep in this pastoral ; where they bind him hand and 
foot, and then claim his promise. Silenus finding they would be put off no longer, 
begins his song ; in which he describes the formation of the universe, and the original 
of animals, according to the Epicurean Philosophy ; and then runs through the most 
surprising transformations which have happened in nature since her birth. This 
pastoral was designed as a compliment to Syro the Epicurean, who instructed Virgil 
and Varus in the principles of that philosophy. Silenus acts as tutor, Chromis and 
Mnasylus as the two pupils. 



(D) 

THE SIXTH PASTORAL; 



OR, 



SILENUS. 



First in the pastoral strain, Syracosian measure, disporting (53) 
Mine, nor disdaining the woods or the wilds, pipes sweetly Thalia. (54) 
Warriors and wars when my reed would reciil, me Delian Apollo - 
Re-buking restrain'd — hear ! Tltyre hear ! thy fold undisturbed 
5 Widen, nor leave for a loftier lay the dirge and the ditty. (55) 
Warn'd then, for oh ! thy glorious renown and the tears and the battle 
Vare, full many a bard shall record, Impassion'd recording ; 
Piping I muse no loftier strain than the wild and the woodland. 
Not uninsplr'd the song, then if ought, fond vision! alluring 

10 Charmful if aught may delight — thee Vare, the lowly myrlcae, 
Echoing thee every grove shall recal, nor Ismenian Apollo (56) 
Radiant a name more honor'd beholds those volumes (57) adorning. 
Arise ye Aonian Maids. Two fauns, in a grotto reposing (58) 
Sllenus lazy-lolling, beheld to slumber abandon'd ; 

15 Fuming and flush'd and laboring with thee, arch p5tent Iaccho. 

Flowers enwreath'd newly fallen from the brow lay withering, beside him 
And glittering aloft, well battered and worn, that chalice depended. 
Seizing, (for promis'd in vain those charms their longing eluded 
Still he with-held,) not injocund they bind with the wreaths and the roses. 

20 Frolic and free to encourage the sport Syracosian Algle (59) 
Naiad, nor lovelier, appears ; she playful, as vacant he gazes, 

G 



42 THE SIXTH PASTORAL ; OR, SILENUS. 

Stains with the ensanguin'd mulberry the God cheek forehead and temples. 
Waken'd at length ; silly swains, what need of the llllies and roses, 
Loose me my children he cries, that ye might if ye would may suffice ye : 

25 Charms ye require; to charms give ear; with charms be rewarded, - 

For thee, bright nymph, other toys are in store — they bow'd and (60) ador'd him. 
Mov'd as he sang hamadryad and fawn, yea, beasts of the forest 
Dtinc'd ; and the woods wide wave swept slow to the stately cadenza, 
Not on Emonian rocks m5re sweet Rhodopei'an Orpheo; 

30 Not more sweet the Pierian choir, Parnassus rejo!cing,(6l) 
Loftier he, the interminable inane, those seeds elemental - 
Of earth, the unfathomable abyss of the flood, diaphanous air, - 
And fire empyreal sang ; consociate they the creation 
Plastic, and this slow gathering orb firm consolidated. 

35 Indurescent the land wlde-shor'd, circumfluous ocean 
Barring ; and earth yet lovelier now all beauty disclosing : 
Ravishing the East, how orient the sun first rose on the morning, - 
And aery the cloud now hover'd aloft showers sweetly distilling : (62) 
What time forests umbrageous rose, and the wild habitation 

40 Exploring amaz'd, few and scatter'd appear the beasts on the mountains. 
Thence the Deucalian deluge, (63) and thence, thee, scept'red Satiirne ; (64) 
Torn of Caucasian vultures and thee, Promethean Titan. (65) 
Carolling now, whatever the fount, where lost and for ever 
Hylas the heroes recal ; (66) Hyla, Hyla, the vallies resounded. 

45 Happy had herds ne'er been, thee too ! to the furies abandoned 
Pasiph'aee ! deploring he mourns, (67) all mournful deploring: 
Lovely as miserable, ah ! what rage ? what demon assails thee ! 
Phrenzi'd of y5re the Argeian maids, by forest or fountain 
Wandering low'd ; but to deeds so dire, such dark aberration 

50 Swerv'd not ; though often dishonor'd with horns those foreheads of silver, - 
And that fair delicate bosom they deem'd rough yok'd for the furrow. 
Lovely as miserable, ah ! while thou in the mountains art roving, 
He on his side ruminating at ease, where flowers hyaclnthine 
Soften the couch, in the oaks broad shade large lolling reposes; - 

55 Or in those vast herds some heifer pursues— > Ye maids of the mountains ! 
Oreads of Ida ! the toils ! spread the toils, where the alleys expanding 



THE SIXTH PASTORAL; OR, SILENUS. 43 

Open the forests, the toils ! perchance, in the fresh of the morning 
Dewy the lawns may betray my belov'd — Ah no ! by the fountain, 
Him tender springing the herb charms away, or the herds his companions 

60 Fugitive him to Gortynian stalls where heifers are brooding. 
Now the auriferous garden, and gold thy bane Atalanta: (68) 
Carolling now those 111 starr'd nymphs, (69) and the bark amberweeping - 
Enfolding around, transforming he rears aery-spiring alders. 
And how by Aonian streams, thy fountain brim Hippocrene, (70) 

65 Wandering, Gallus enravish'd beheld those haunts of the Muses 
Hallowed ; and all the Pierian choir high-honor'd receiv'd him. 
Ancient of song, how that dread bard Threi'cian (71) Orph'eo; 
Flowers, and savory parsley enwreath'd those tresses adorning, 
Solemn was heard — These reeds — their gift — Oh ! lov'd of the Muses, 

70 Grateful receive — these reeds — 15 ! these, the Ascraian minstrel 
Charming, the oaks of the mountain obey'd to the vally descending. 
Warble with these the Grynaian grove ; nor Ismenian Apollo 
Temple or fane more renown'd shall behold to his honor resounding - 
Boots it Megarian Scylla to tell ; or who, too renowned, (72) 

75 Monsters yelling her ivory hip, Til klrtle ! deforming, 

Shattered the fam'd DulTchian barks ; and the horrifi'd sailors, 
Mangling ! ah ! v5raginous plung'd to her dogs of the ocean : - 
■ Or how the barbarian monarch he t5ld ; thee, miserable (73) Tereo, 
Whence those viands Philomela prepar'd ; what presents awarded ; 

80 Whither her course to the desert she sped ; and how, wretched ! on pinions 
Flitting, the roof no longer her own, she haunts and for ever. 
All whate'er by the laurelled shore once, radiant (74) Apollo 
Chaunted ; and riivish'd Eurota recall'd, to the echo commending 
Enchanting he sang ; to the stars reverberant the vallies resounded. 

85 Nfimbering the flock, till the shepherds were seen, in the grey of the evening 
Gathering ; and night's pale planet arose from the deeps of the ocean. (75) 



THE 



TENTH PASTORAL; OR, GALLUS. 



THE ARGUMENT. 

Gallus, a great patron of Virgil, and an excellent poet, was very deeply in love with 
one Cytheris, whom he calls Lycoris ; and who had forsaken him for the company 
of a soldier. The poet therefore supposes his friend Gallus retired in the height of 
his melancholy into the solitudes of Arcadia, (the celebrated scene of pastorals) ; 
where he represents him in a very languishing condition, with all the rural deities 
about him, pitying his hard usage, and condoling his misfortune. 



(A) 
THE TENTH PASTORAL 

OR, 

GALLUS. 



Last be the task, yet oh ! be the task, Arethusa, conceded. 
Thee, thee, friend of my soul, would I sing ; while 15vely Lycoris (76) 
Hears nor disdainful the strain, that strain which who may refuse thee? 
Galle, thou child of song ? (77) then smile, oh smile, Arethusa; 
6 So may thy soft sweet stream, flow on and eternally flow on 
Under the Nacrian wave, nor blend with the brine of the billow. (78) 
Rise then, nymph of the stream ; sing aloud, while listening around thee 
Echo the green-wood shades ; and the loves of my friend are resounding. 
Spirits that ever abide, bright shapes, bye forest or fountain ; 

10 Where were your light steps staid when the love-lorn Gallus abandoned 
Perish'd? for not on the crags, Aonian summits, nor aspiring 
High where PIndus frowns, nor thy fountain brim Aganippe; (79) 
Him, by the laurel not unwept, not unwept by the shades of the myrtle, 
Black with the mountain pine, on the lone lone rocks as he wandered, 

15 Mainalo mourn'd ; him mourn 'd the chill-cold caves of Lycaon. (80) 
Droop thy cattle around, fair flocks, nor unown'd of the Muses ; 
Minstrel of heavenly song blush not, nor thou too disown them ; 
Beautiful once by the stream led his flock the all-lovely Adonis. (81) 
Hither the herds of the sheep — slow treading hither the neatherds, 

20 Wet with the wlntery mast, hither came dew drippy Menalcas : (82) 
Wondering, together they cry ; why weepeth he ? hither Apollo : 



48 THE TENTH PASTORAL; OR, GALLUS. 

Galle, forbear ! he exclaims, for another false-hearted Lycoris 

Flies o'er the hills and the snows to the field of the foe and the slaughter. 

Onward, his hoary brows deep-drown'd in the crown and the garland, 

25 Dancing the giant plumes of the ferula, the flower of the lily, 
Hither Sylviino came : hither came, these eyes too beheld him 
Worshipp'd where spread fair Arcadys plains, or her summits are aspiring, 
Pan the ador'd — I saw, with the Mulberry stain'd and the minium. 
Weeps he for ever ! he cries, fond swain ! may tears then avail thee ! 

30 Bees on the bloom, and the lambs on the lawn, and the fields on the fountains 
Feast, and for ever, but love fierce love, on the hearts that are breaking. 
Mournful he paus'd, then, oh ! ye swains of Arcadia, mournfully - 
Awakening the rocks to my woes, sole-sklll'd in the dirge and the ditty - 
Ye swains of Arcadia, soft, full softly my bones may repose them, 

35 May but your mountain pipe with my loves and my woes be resounding. 
Happy had the crook been mine ; or the charge of the vine, or the vine-yard 
Mine; where empurpling the sun-bright hills yon clusters are glowing. 
Happy were the bright-hair'd Phlllis my love, or my love Aramyntas, 
Shepherd or nymph — nay scorn, scorn not dark-eyed Aramyntas ; 

40 Dark is the violet bloom ; ever-green though dark is the myrtle : 

There amid the sallows, where the vines flaunt high, on my bosom reposing 
Phlllis with flowers had adorn'd my retreat, with songs Aramyntas. 
Freshening founts gush here; these groves, these lawns, my adored ! 
Fresh ; here here would I hide, in the arms of my love, and for ever : 

45 Vainly, oh ! vainly, for love, me mail'd, me red with the slaughter, (83) 
There where the jav'lins are showering amain and the falchions are flashing, 
Stationing me, bids stand unrecall'd confronting the battle : - 
While thou ! cruel thought ! far away from thine own dear land, by the fountains 
Pouring the Rhine, thrice frore, with the snow of the Alps and the Iceberg, 

50 Wanderest alone — ye crags ! ye Ice-raggy paths of the mountains ! 
Ah me ! empurpling her Ivory feet wound not my adored ! 
Away! whatever in happier hours Chalcldian numbers 

Carrolling resounded, again will I breathe to the shepherds commending : (84) 
Fix'd, amid the caverns and the dens, in the woodland wilds, amid mountains 

55 Savage, there to endure ; on the frail fresh rind of the sapling 

Graving my loves ; ye will flourish, ye shades ! ye loves ! and together ! 



THE TENTH PASTORAL; OR, GALLUS. 49 

Meanwhile, mingled with the nymphs, o'er Mainalus mourn will I wander - 
Or spearing the boar ; me the frost, me the Ice-chilly blasts of the morning 
Thrill, but in vain — hark ! hark ! the Parthenian forests are awakening ; (85) 

60 Dream I ? or fleet amid the rocks and the woods to the echo resounding 
Hiirry amain — 'tis the sport when the Lyctian arrows are showering 
Thick to the quarry — Ah ! fool ! as if arts like these may avail thee 
Aught ; or the fierce cruel boy may relent for the hearts that are breaking. 
No, the retreats of the grove and the once lov'd haunts of the Muses, 

65 Ne'er may delight me more ; farewell, bright scenes, and for ever. 
Him our grief, our tears nought move, our labour and sorrow 
Nought, though we drink of the streams, where the chill-cold Hebrus is rolling, 
Braving the snow, Slthonian storms, (86) unappall'd unregarded ; 
Not amid the sun-burnt plains tho' faint where the tropics are flaming, 

70 Withering we tend the Arabian folds, self-exil'd for ever. 

Eros is Lord — Almighty he reigns — let us bend and adore him. (87) 



II 



NOTES. 



NOTES. 



NOTES ON THE FIRST PASTORAL. 

Note 1, page 29, ver. 1. 

' Tityre, you, by the whispering beech, in the shadow reposing ; ' 

Here, as elsewhere, for the sake of music, a little freedom has been used with the 
appellatives ; Tityre being used for Tityrus, Melibaee for Melibaeus and so on. The 
Roman capitals B, C, D, and A, prefixed to these four pastorals, respectively, signify 
the order in which they have been turned by the author into English hexameter verse. 
Thus the tenth pastoral marked A was the first translated, the remaining three being- 
finished successively, in the order of the letters B, C, and D. 

Note 2, page 29, ver. 2. 

' Warbling the woodland muse, wind sweetly the slender recorder ; ' 

or we may read, 

' Charming the woodland song, chime sweetly the gentle recorder.' 

so Spencer, 

' Charming his oaten pipe unto his peers ; ' 

that is tuning ; and Dryden 

' And chime their lifted hammers in a row ; 

that is, sound notes in musical succession : the word, therefore, will bear the sense of 
play upon ; in which signification it is used above. " Figures of recorders, flutes and 



54 NOTES ON THE FIRST PASTORAL. 

" pipes," says Bacon, " are straight ; but the recorder has a less bore, and a greater" 
" above and below." The metrical fitness of the word recorder has induced me to use 
it here ; in the original, the word is avena, oaten pipe. 

Note 3, page 29, ver. 3. 

' We from our own dear home, sweet fields ! from the land of our fathers.' 

When Caesar, the most amiable, and not the least scrupulous of statesmen, after 
sitting for some few months on that" bad eminence," perished by the dagger of the Roman 
nobles, a civil war arose to avenge his death. The usual routine of events followed, 
and in the progress of the contest, extensive districts in the north of Italy, becoming 
forfeited to those, who having force had justice of course upon their side, the in- 
habitants to make room for new settlers, (the veterans of the Triumviri,) were com- 
pelled to migrate in haste. Let the English reader imagine that he sees the peasantry 
flying in all directions, on the formation of the New Forest ; or let him picture to him- 
self the Portuguese abandoning their homes, when Wellington, in recent times, re- 
tired upon the ever-memorable lines of Torres Vedras ; and it may help the imagina- 
tion to conceive the scene. 

Note 4, page 29, ver. 5. 

' Carolling resound Amarillida bright to the wild and the woodland.' 

Amarillis is more usual, Amarillida is more musical ; the latter, therefore, I have pre- 
ferred. 

It may be well to observe here, that the images of repose and secure ease are much 
more prominent in the original, than the version — patulse — recubans — meditaris — 
lentus — lolling at ease — lying supine — composing amorous ditties — under the wide 
spreading beech. In the original, the very murmurs of the tree are unheard, and 

' Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi ; 

may be more correctly translated 

' Tityre, you by the wide spread beech in the shadow reclining ; ' 



NOTES ON THE FIRST PASTORAL. 55 

the line, however, in the text, has the brisker current ; and has, therefore, been suf- 
fered to remain. 

Note 5, page 29, ver. 7. 

' Hallowing the stillness around ; to that power betimes in a morning.' 

The celestial power to which the shepherd alludes was most probably Augustus 
Caesar : the poet, however, may have intended the compliment for some other less 
powerful patron, but the difference of person is of small moment ; and the feeling of 
gratitude, whatever its object, is the same. The pagan divinities were so very corporeal 
in their nature, that the transition from breakfast to ambrosia, scarcely shocked credu- 
lity : an altar — a victim — an image — and a shrine — a flattering senate — or an out- 
rageous faction — a few vain and idle ceremonies — and the deification was done. 

' Deus, Deus ille Menalca.' 

Note 6, page 29, ver. 10. 

' Wanton at will on rebeck and reed to the dirge and the ditty.' 

The rebeck, in our language, signifies a sort of stringed instrument. Of what kind ? 
Why; the lyre is the more graceful, but the kit is the more probable. Those who 
doubt whether Tityrus could manage stringed instruments, for ' rebeck and reed,' may 
read 'pastoral pipe:' 

' Wanton at will on the pastoral pipe to the dirge and the ditty.' 

Note 7, page 30, ver. 18. 

' Oft the Dodonian oak, thunderstruck in the forest around us,' 
1 have ventured to use the epithet Dodonian, for the sake of the music ; both Virgil 
and Milton have used words apparently for the same reason, 

' on the top of Fiesole, 
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands.' — P. L. 

to this, probably, we owe in part the ' extremi Garamantes ; ' but surely not to this, the 
' uttermost Withop: ' the able, and original author of the vision of judgment has too 



56 NOTES ON THE FIRST PASTORAL. 

much merit to take offence at the remark. Dodona was an ancient town of Epirus . 
near it was a large grove of oaks ; and these oaks were oracular. Melibaee, of super- 
stitious turn, was as likely to have heard of these Dodonian oaks, as to have known 
the names of those rivers of Gaul and Asia which he afterwards mentions. We have 
Damask roses, cedars of Lebanon, and holy evergreens, familiar to every gardener, 
and gardener's boy ; and why not Dodonian oaks known to Melibaee also. 

Note 8, page 30, ver. 27. 

' Towers in the loft, over bramble and brake as the cedar is towering. 1 

In the original 

' Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi. ' 

To produce an analogous impression on the English reader, for the viburna and 
cupressi, I have substituted other productions of the vegetable kingdom. The cu- 
pressus, or cypress, is pretty well known to us, but with us it is rather a scrubby sort 
of plant ; and, as to the Guelder rose, a botanical description would be necessary to 
introduce it to the ordinary reader ; neither of these objects, therefore, is fitted to pro- 
duce in the English mind, the lively, and appropriate image, which it raised in the 
brisk imagination of the ancient Italian^ familiar from his childhood with the plants 
alluded to. 

Note 9, page 30, ver. 29. 

' Liberty, friend ; when shaggy my beard fell gray in the shearing,' 

' Candidior postquam tondenti barba cadebat. ' 

A remarkable image, bordering on the confines of the ridiculous; and which of course 
has not been overlooked by the lynx-eyed ken of the satirist. Juvenal has honored it 
with a parody. In the original, it will be observed, the greyness of the beard is desig- 
nated by the word candidior. This seems to signify, somewhat white ; beginning to 
change ; so that, unless the love-sick swain had been afterwards greeted with the very 
reverend appellation of ' senex,' or aged friend, one might have placed his years on the 
right side of fifty : after all, it seems a little strange that Virgil should give so venerable 
an air to the minstrel adorer of the lovely Amaryllis: he really looks more like a sober 



NOTES ON THE FIRST PASTORAL. 57 

christian pastor than a lively pagan shepherd. Father I-forget-his-name, the Jesuit, 
might have made something of this, when he maintained, that the reputed Latin classics 
were all of them nothing more than modern Italian forgeries. 



Note 10, page 30, ver. 30. 

' Gracious, at length, sweet liberty smiled on her reckless adorer : ' 

About the first centuries of our aera, when the estates of the wealthy were becoming 
so extensive, that once sovereign countries were sometimes enclosed within a single 
manor, large numbers of slaves were employed for rustic services, as shepherds, hus- 
bandmen, drivers, bailiffs, and the like. Our own West Indian plantations furnish an 
illustration in point. These slaves, also, like the negroes of the sugar countries, could 
hold a sort of private property, their 'peculium' as it was called; and often when 
these funds were sufficient they emancipated themselves by purchase. Tityrus, in the 
pastoral, appears to have been one of these rural serfs ; and seems to have made his 
journey to Rome, with the double intention of purchasing his emancipation, and ob- 
taining the countenance and protection of some great and powerful patron, to defend 
him from the rapacity and violence of the soldiery. Of whom he purchased his free- 
dom, in other words, who was his master is a point of no interest ; in default of a 
fitter personage let us suppose it was Maecenas, the friend and favorite of Augustus. 
The great protector whom he found, the deity who gave him that consolatory response, 

Shepherd secure still pasture the field, still widen the foldings, 

seems evidently to have been the future emperor ; to whose most gracious protection 
Maecenas might well have introduced him ; for, with respect to some points of the nar- 
ration, and this protection among the rest, Virgil, in the person of Tityrus, seems to 
relate what had occurred to himself. 

Note 11, page 30, ver. 36. 

' Bootless was all; never burdened with coin to my cot I returned.' 
1 Non unquam gravis sere domum mihi dextra redibat.' 

Throughout the commencement and the middle part of this pastoral, Virgil has in- 
dulged his taste for the simple and the naive ; as the images, the expressions, and the 

I 



58 NOTES ON THE FIRST PASTORAL. 

very flow of the verse seem to prove, and to this style it is that this blunt and rustic 
line belongs. He rises, however, nobly though perhaps uncritically. towards the close. 

' Non omnes arbusta juvant humilesque myricae. 
Nor the meads, nor the lowly myricse. 
Gracious to all, then statelier sing.' 

But genius begins where rule ends. 

Note 12, page 30, ver. 48. 

' Meadow and marsh then are thine ; what though, where wander the waters 
Fattening the fens — ' 

The scene is laid on the fenny shores of the Mincius, the 

' Smooth sliding Mincius crown'd with vocal reeds ; ' 

a river, in some of its circumstances, so like the Camus, that, had the passage been 
shorter, and the Mincius a Mincia, we might have supposed that the charming little 
fiction of Alpheus and Arethusa had been realized in our own island, and that the re- 
verend Camus, had found a passage to his Transalpine minion, by mysterious avenues 
beneath the deep. 

' Under the Naciian wave, nor blent with the brine of the billow.' 

Note 13, page 31, ver. 51. 

' Not in thy walks shall pasturage strange breed strange alteration,' 

Sheepwalks are meant — and the word alteration is here used in a submedical sense ; 
and signifies change in the humors, preparatory to the attack of some violent pestilen- 
tial distemper : our poetical language is so deficient in polysyllables, that the mere 
length and sound of the word recommend it strongly to hexametrical versification. 

Note 14, page 31, ver. 54. 

4 Fortunate thou ! thrice fortunate thou! by freshet or fountain, 
Rillet or hallowed brook,' 



NOTES ON THE FIRST PASTORAL. 59 

In the original, 

hie inter flumina nota 

by which we may understand the Mincius and the Po : I have preferred, however, to 
refer it to the springs and streams running by. 

Note 15, page 31, ver. 58. 

1 Feast of the bees, Hyblaian sweets, blooming still undisturbed ' 

or we may read, Hyblensian sweets. The honey of Hybla, in Sicily, was equal to 
that of Hymettus in Attica ; and the mel Atticum, or Attic honey, was equal to the sal 
Atticum, or Attic salt, the latter being, as every wit knows, the very best and finest 
of the kind. With respect to the bees, I may observe that, faithful and constant to 
their attachment, after a succession of nearly two thousand generations, there on the 
blooming hedges of Mantua, they may still be found wantonly courting the flowers 
and sunshine, as fond and amorous as ever. 

' Round Reggio,' says the masterly and tasteful author of Vathek, ' I remarked 
' many a cottage, that Tityrus might have inhabited, with its garden and willow- 
' hedge, still swarming with bees.' Salictum, or willow-hedge, is the image in the 
original of Virgil. 

Note 16, page 31, ver. 61. 

' Carol aloud like the lark in the loft, salluting the. morning.' 

In the word saluting, 1 would recommend doubling the liquid, at least in the utter- 
ance ; and reading in the Italian style, sal-luting the morning, pronouncing strongly 
the first /. The delicate ear of the Greeks admitted these licenses, and why should 
not we? They are grounded on the nature of sound, and have the same foundation 
in all languages ; should the license then be allowed ; I would beg leave to indicate it 
by the typography ; for to fix sound, is the principal purpose of the art ; I print, 
therefore, salluting. 

* Beckford's Italy, with sketches of Spain and Portugal, p. 78. Ed. Paris, Baudry's, 1834. 



60 NOTES ON THE FIRST PASTORAL. 

Note 17, page 31, ver. 62. 

' Mourn meanwhile in the aery elm yon turtles complaining, 

1 And those pet pigeons, the birds that you love, coo still and for ever.' 

" The voice of the turtle is heard in our land," and there the voice may be still heard. 
How durable is nature, even in her smallest works ! How passing is man even in his 
greatest ! The Coliseum is in ruins ; but the bees still murmur on the Mantuan 
willow-hedges, lively and laborious as ever ; and the coo of the wood pigeons still 
wakens the elms. See preceding note. Should the reader however, object to the ter- 
mination 'for ever' he may read, 

' still coo undisturbed.' 

Note 18, page 31, ver. 67. 

' Parthia athirst the Arari shall drink, Germania Tigris 

In reading these, and similar names, I would recommend the use of the Italian a, 
the a which we tise in the word father. Our miserable alphabet and typography, at 
once deficient and redundant in its letters, renders it impossible by the usual sign, the 
letter a I mean, to indicate whether the vowel is an a as in father, or an a as in aged. 
Why does not some eminent publisher, for the honour of his art, get a move beyond 
the mere trade of his business ; and by elegant and significant signs properly applied, 
fix the meaning of all the dubious letters, whether voiceless or vocal. Shall it continue 
to be true, that thousands have been expended to improve the movement of the piano 
forte ; and yet that no great and wealthy printing house will lay out a few hundreds, 
to invent, and introduce, and force into attention, a system of signs so much wanted? 
and this too in an age of innovation ! and when with the spread of our language, 
foreigners must so much need this help. Are our printers to be for ever doomed, 
like Caxton, to be mere imitators ; never falling back upon first principles, and endea- 
vouring for the mere love of it to make essential improvements in their art ? Where is 
the spirit of Aldus Minucius ? But there are difficulties, and the book would not sell. 
Ought we not to be ashamed of such an excuse ? What ! all for gain ! and nothing for 
honour, the honour of that typography, the boast of modern inventions : if something- 
is not done, our language hereafter bids fair in a future age to become almost illegible. 
But I digress. 



NOTES ON THE FIRST PASTORAL. 61 

The Arari, now the Soane, a river of France, and therefore far away from Parthia 
in its strictest sense, as this country is placed to the east of Media. For the sake of 
the metre I have lengthened the second syllable of the word Arari, in the original it is 
short. 



Note 19, page 31, ver. 67. 

' Germania Tigri.' 

Every one now has heard of the Euphrates, the steam vessels, and the mail bags ; for all 
now group together, in the imagination : Every one has read, or ought to have read, 
of that " great river, the river Euphrates." The Tigris mentioned in the text, rising 
in Armenia, and lying more eastward, flows into the Persian gulph by the same 
mouth as the Euphrates. Between the two rivers are spread the fertile plains of Meso- 
potamia. It may be well perhaps to add, a remark of the criticks, I mean, that to 
accomplish this mutual emigration, the Roman empire, then in the full strength of its 
military vigour, must first have been subdued. The implied impossibility of the in- 
terchange carried with it a compliment to his countrymen ; or rather, to the nascent 
emperor on whose protection the poet leaned. 

Note 20, page 31, ver. 69. 

' We but alas ! ah we ! to Numidiari deserts may wander. 
To Scythia we ' 

The great desert of Africa, the Saahra, in parts of it, borders upon the ancient 
Numidia; a country of uncertain boundary, and nomadick occupation, lying in the 
same regions as the regency of Algiers. " To Scythia," for Scythia read Russia ; and 
the geography of that vast country will be understood at once with sufficient accuracy 
for poetic purposes. Might we read " Siberia," the image would become more strong 
and lively still. It is amusing to an Englishman in the midst of his mighty metro- 
polis to find the Mantuan Shepherd ; after anticipating exile to the deserts of Africa, 
or the steppes of Russia, bitterly reflecting, as the climax to all this misery, that he 
might even be condemned to make a jaunt to the lovely vale of Richmond or to 



62 NOTES ON THE FIRST PASTORAL. 

settle on the scite of future London, in the midst of miserable acres worth a auinea or 
two the square foot. 



Note 21, page 31, ver. 70. 

* or roaring amain Rhadamantine Oaxes.' 

The Oaxes was a rapid river of Crete. Rhadamanthus, once a Cretan monarch, 
became after death one of the judges of the departed ; and to a shepherd therefore, not 
uninstructed in his religion, was likely to be better known than the Oaxes itself. As 
the epithet suits the metre I have ventured to use it. 

Note 22, page 31, ver. 70. 

' Torn from the world or the ocean isle barbaric Britannia.' 

' Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos.' 

In translating this line, I have availed myself of the opinion that our island once 
formed a part of the continent ; and was, happily for us, torn away from the main by 

i 

some great geological convulsion. As Britain had just been discovered to the 
Romans, Caesar having landed here some short time before, the island was likely enough 
to be a subject of general conversation, even among the Mantuans ; just as Sicily had 
been among the meanest of the Athenians some three or four hundred years previously. 
Probably many of the veterans, who were settling in the lands about Cremona and 
Mantua, had served against the Britons ; and were likely enough to talk of their ad- 
ventures in this and other countries. Indeed this peculiar source of geographical 
knowledge, which, to their cost, had been opened to the Mantuans and the people of 
Cremona, may I think be fairly urged in reply to those criticks, (and there are many), 
who have contended that Virgil is out of nature and manners, when he represents 
Melibaaus as so knowing in the names of distant regions. Surely our own peasantry, 
whose sons, brothers, or cousins have served in the great war, may without forcing 
probability, be supposed to have heard something of Madrid and Paris ; to say nothing 
of the Tagus, the Ebro, the Seine, and the Nile. 



NOTES ON THE FIRST PASTORAL. 63 

Note 23, page 31, ver. 73. 

' Low o'er the levelled blade when the thatch on the barley is peering, 
' Ever, alas ! on my own dear cottage again shall I gaze me ! ' 

' Post aliquot, mea regna videns, mirabor aristas ? ' 

I do not enter into the well known controversy respecting the two versions whicli 
this line will bear; translation is not my principal object. Of the two disputed 
meanings, I have chosen that which to me appeared to give the most pleasing image. 
Mirabor, I presume, means to look with intensity and emotion ; i. e. to gaze. Those 
who have seen the thatched roofs in the Netherlands, floating like the pictured ark 
upon the billowy surface of the fine rich corn fields will enter into the image above. 

Note 24, page 31, ver. 77. 

' Ah friends civil discord abounding 
' See where it leads . . 

See note 3. 

Note 25, page 31, ver. 85. 

i 

' 7-athe-7'ipes, some few in my store room.' 
An early ripening apple is so called. 



NOTES ON THE FQURTH PASTORAL. 

Note 26, page 35, ver. 1. 

' Choir of Olympian Jove, Trinacrian muses, awakening,' 

' And hear the muses in a ring, 

Aye round about Jove's altar sing.' Milton. 

According to the charming fictions of the gay Grecian Mythology, the muses 
formed the choir at the banquets of Jupiter, the father of the gods. 

Note 27, page 35, ver. 1. 

' Trinacrian muses, awakening,' 

Trinacria was an ancient name of Sicily; and its hexametrical form and sound 
strongly recommend the word to this verse ; besides, in a poem like the Pollio, the 
more ancient words seem, with peculiar propriety, to claim a place. We may, how- 
ever, read if we please, 

' Syracosian muses, awakening.' 

Virgil says elsewhere, but in less solemn composition ; 

' Prima Syracosio dignata est ludere versu'. 

Note 28, page 35, ver. 2. 

' Nor the meads, nor the lillies and roses.' 



NOTES ON THE FOURTH PASTORAL. 65 

in the original, ' humilesque myricae,' 

' nor the meads, nor the lowly myricae.' 

either version will read ; but, for general perusal, I prefer the former, as more familiar 
to the English fancy. 

Is the myrica the ' sweet scented gale' of our Flora? called also the Dutch 
myrtle ; a lowly, sweet scented plant. 

Note 29, page 35, ver. 4. 

' Echoing resound to the globes great Lord, not unhonored resounding.' 

In the last ages of the Roman republic, as long as the consular power remained in 
force, the personage who sustained this august office might well be designated as the Lord 
of the world ; and, even at the time when Virgil wrote, this notion of grandeur must 
have continued to be associated with this high and lofty magistracy, notwithstanding 
that the real power was absorbed by the Triumvirate, or seated in the imperial chair. 
To the term consul, therefore, in this place I have preferred the expression, ' the 
globes great Lord,' as better calculated to produce the Virgilian impression on an 
English mind. 



Note 30, page 35, ver. 5. 

' Sung by the wizard of old, the world's vast age is accomplishing ; 

In the original ' Cumaei Carminis.' If any, therefore, defy the sibilants, and prefer 
a closer version, they may read sung by the Sibyll of old ; for the verse of the 
Cumsean Sibyll is intended. Those who have read all the controversies respecting 
these famous sisters, are likely enough to turn pale at the name, and sick at the re- 
membrance. Suffice it to remark, that the verses of these Sibylls seemed to have 
formed the prophetic scriptures of the Roman republic ; and that they are supposed to 
have contained some most remarkable prophecies respecting the Messiah. In reading 
this pastoral, whoever is versed in the Holy writings, must be struck, I think, with the 
striking resemblance between the Hebrew prophet and the Roman poet; and this is 
more remarkable, as the general character of the whole poetry of the two nations is 



66 NOTES ON THE FOURTH PASTORAL. 

exceedingly dissimilar ; Virgil, however, Hebraizes a little now and then, even in other 
eclogues. Had he ever seen the Septuagint? Would he not have drawn more largely 
had these treasures of oriental literature been unlocked before him. Was he indebted 
solely to Ptolemy and Theocritus in this matter. 



Note 31, page 35, ver. 6. 

' Sung by the wizard of old, the world's vast age is accomplishing ; 
' Orb upon orb huge rolling the long drawn era commences :' 

Among the people of different countries, an opinion seems to have prevailed, that 
after the complete revolution of a vast yet definite number of ages, the same occur- 
rences throughout the world would, with miraculous iteration, roll round again ; that 
the treaty of Vienna and the taking of Troy — the battle of Waterloo and the field of 
Marathon — the French revolution and the Noachic deluge — the tricks of Scapin and 
the grave rogueries of graver and wiser personages ; like some favoured tragedy or 
comedy, night after night, would again be brought upon the stage, to be acted, in vast 
and never ceasing repetitions, for ever and ever, world without end. When the stars 
were imagined to be, not masses of matter but sublime divinities — when the earth was 
supposed, not to be acted upon by the agency of the heavenly bodies, operating as 
brute matter working as matter ; but, on the contrary, to be providentially governed by 
them as splendid globular intelligences exerting a direct and divine influence ; in a 
word, when Sabseism prevailed, and men worshipped the heavens and "the host thereof;" 
what in the system was more reasonable than astrology 1 what more probable than the 
opinion of the Sabseist, that his future life depended upon the stars, in other words, 
according to his system, the gods under whose protection he was born ? and as the 
hosts of heaven, the gods, were ruling the earth beneath, what was more reasonable 
than to suppose, that when these bright deities again met under the same conjunction 
or holy synod ; they might again decree what they had decreed before ; and again, 
under their government, might providentially give rise to the same great circle of 
occurrences. Analogy might be urged — the sun, it might be said, (the mighty Baal 
of the system), fulfilling his annual orbit, leads round the earth through the same suc- 
cession of changes, and spring and summer, autumn and winter, follow each other, in 
endless repetition, as before. In conformity, perhaps, with this analogy, this immense 
circle of ages when completed, has, in the ancient mythology, been called a year ; 



NOTES ON THE FOURTH PASTORAL. 67 

distinguished, however, from the ordinary year by some appropriate epithet, as the 
great or mighty year. 

In all this there is not so much absurdity as at first sight appears, astrology was, in 
fact, the providence of the Sabaeist ; and reasonably so, while he worshipped the stars. 
Yet see the astonishing force of conviction without proof ! in our western world at 
least, Sabaeism is vanished ; and with it the original and only rational foundation of 
the Sabaean providence, astrology, I mean, is passed away ; yet, a century or two ago, 
men of the most improved understandings, (Dryden himself was an instance of this ;) 
men who never dreamt of the truth of Sabaeism, were, in this country, firm believers in 
these astrological doctrines, after the extinction of Sabaeism had left the system with- 
out a stone to stand upon. But to return from this digression, by the ' long drawn 
aera' — we are to understand one of these immense orbits of time, agreeably to these 
ancient opinions, containing within itself complete, the whole cycle of mundane 
events (inclusive of my now applying this pen to the paper) to be again repeated ; 
without addition or substraction of one single event, sera after aera, in never ending 
succession. 

Note 32, page 35, ver. 7. 

1 Returns Astraa to man; Saturnian peace is returning;' 

Astraea was the divinity patroness of justice and righteousness ; should the English 
reader prefer it he may turn the line differently. 

1 Justice returns to man; Saturnian peace is returning;' 
Thus the Psalmist, 

' Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.' 

Note 33, page 35, ver. 8. 

' Down from the heaven of heavens a race new born is descended;' 

The all-golden race mentioned, v. 10. If all ostensible christians would but act up 
to the golden rule of their master, ' Do as you would be done by' — the character of 
' Gens aurea,' the golden — would then indeed become applicable by an easy adap- 
tation, which would put no force upon the poet. Should the ear be offended by the 



68 NOTES ON THE FOURTH PASTORAL. 

triple recurrence of the final syllable ' ing' in the words ' returning,' ' descending,' 
' arising,' we may, in the second place, read descended. 

Note 34, page 35, ver. 11. 

t Virgin of heaven defend — thou Lord omnipotent reignest !' 

The poetry of the ancients, like the Arabian tales, is animated with a strong reli- 
gious feeling ; which must have given a solemn, cathedral, painted-window-like effect 
to many a passage which now lies dead and cold before us. Their mythology, in 
modern times, is extinct, at least in the west; and that very appearance of the names 
and attributes of their divinities, which must have operated on the heart of the pagan, 
like a solemn service of religion,- on the heart of the christian, has now an effect, of 
a nature, precisely the contrary. Of the pagan gods, indeed, in these poems, we 
may, as it were, sometimes, see the presence but the form is of marble ; and where 
it produces any effect, beyond a mere ornament, the gelid touch of the dead im- 
mortal seems, sometimes, to strike to the heart like the cold hand of a corse — 
none but a pagan in religion can, in feeling, do full justice to the poetry of a pagan; 
in the mind of the modern christian, the responsive chord is wanting; no diapason 
resounds to the poet's touch. The ancient fathers of the church, many of them pagans 
in their first indelible impressions, feeling the awful emotions produced by Virgil's 
master-hand, fondly persuaded themselves that the poet was inspired, indeed, but 
inspired by daemons; for such, in their opinion, the heathen divinities were; but the 
modern christian, from his earliest years, fraught with a purer and truer, and therefore 
a better faith, when reading those very passages which, like children's ghost stories, 
filled the pagan mind with ' awful horror,' wonders what we can admire in such 
schoolboy declamation. The charms of the enchantress, (if we may give credence to 
Arabian fables,) converted the inferior parts of the unfortunate prince into a pedestal 
of stone ; and the petrific power of an unsympathizing education has transformed the 
gods of Olympus into marble statues, the Apollo of Delphos, into the Apollo Belvidere. 
With a view of remedying a little, this inconvenience, in this and some other passages, 
I have taken a slight liberty with my author; and by translating, 'tuus jam regnat 
Apollo,' ' thou Lord omnipotent reignest,' I have, I trust, secured to the poet, even in 
his christian reader, some portion of that religious sympathy on which no doubt he 
counted, and with reason, in the dark days of western paganism. Apollo Baal, or the 
sun, used to be called preeminently, " Lord." 



NOTES ON THE FOURTH PASTORAL. 69 

Note 34 b, page 35, ver. 12, 13, 14. 

' With thee too, thee, this glory of the earth, this regeneration 1 
1 Pollio arises ; majestic the months processive revolving? 
' Consul, with thee :' — 

It is scarcely necessary to observe here in the way of explanation, that at the time of 
this auspicious advent, Pollio was consul ; had Virgil lived in the present day, he might 
have given to his verse a turn perhaps more musical, and certainly far more pleasing to 
British ears, 

With thee too, thee, this glory of the earth, this regeneration- 
Victoria ! arises, majestic the months processive revolving, 
Sovereign, with thee ! 

Note 35, page 35, ver. 16, 17. 

' He among gods aye throned a god, among demigods heroes' 
1 Mingling heaven on earth shall behold' 

Gods — demigods — heroes — among the pagans, in some little measure, correspond 

with the orders of the angelic hierarchy. The mere English reader may here help his 

conception of the poet, though very imperfectly, by recalling to mind the hierarchy of 

our great christian bard, the author of Paradise Lost and Regained, — saints — angels — 

archangels. 

' Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.' 

i 

Note 36, page 35, ver. 17, 18. 

' nor himself unbehelden,' 

' This great world ever govern in peace, in the glory of the father.' 

1 Unbehelden ;' an ancient and more sonorous word than ' unbeheld :' we say 
' beholden to a person.' Virgil, to raise his style, occasionally uses the same artifice, 
" Olli subridens." Would it not be wise in criticism, at least to connive at these hex- 
a metrical archaisms, while the verse is forming in our language? if used with judg- 
ment they may communicate to our style additional majesty and music. Till the 
public taste become accustomed to them, irregularities of this kind might find a refuge 
under the head of hexametrical licenses. Use in these cases is every thing. 



70 NOTES ON THE FOURTH PASTORAL. 

Note 37, page 35, ver. 18. 

' This great world ever govern in peace, in the glory of the father.' 1 

Or the ' power of the father,' for it will read either way — patriis virtutibus orbem — 
with the virtues or rather attributes of his father is a more literal sense, but the 
expression in the text being allied to sacred expression, I prefer it for the reason given 
at large in note 34. 

Note 38, page 35, ver. 20. 

' yea the rich cinnamomum' 

More musical than cinnamon; we say amomum. If delicate ears take offence, we 
may read, yea Assyrian amomum. The ancients took larger liberties with names — 
Zertusht, in the mouth of a Greek became Zoroaster ; and Virgil himself call sa well 
known plant, the Culcas of the Egyptians, the Colocasium. 

Note 39, page 36, ver. 24. 

' Blossoming for thee, shall bloom as the rose, in the rise of the morning.' 
Or if we prefer the tribrach or tremulous dactyl, we may read — 

' Blossoming for thee, shall bloom as the flower in the fresh of the morning." 

Note 40, page 36, ver. 32. 

' Sin spot nathless shall remain, not wholly effaced.' 
Nathless, nevertheless, an archaism. 

' Nathless he so indured.' Milton's P. L. 

Note 41, page 36, ver. 33. 

' Harrowing the ocean the bark shall be seen ; seen bulwark and bastion' 

Or we may read, ' ploughing the ocean.' The sound recommends the one, the sense 
the other ; here I prefer sound to sense. 



NOTES ON THE FOURTH PASTORAL. 71 

Note 42, page 36, ver. 35. 

' Tiphys again, starred Argo again', yet again those heroes,' 
1 Men of renown, and Idson shall arise ' 

Among the Greeks of old, Tiphys and Argo were scarcely less renowned than 
among ourselves, the ark and the patriarch. The tale is long and romantic ; full of 
the wild, the terrible and the ungeographical ; with specious miracles, and heroic 
dangers; with an animating admixture of love, pity, jealousy, and magic; and a 
delicious taste of those horrors which seem to be the luxury and delight of ' La Jeune 
France.' ' Whatever in romance of Uther's son,' may in substance be found here 
for like the comets of our system, the human imagination, even when most eccentric, 
seems still to revolve for ever in one and the same orbit. How true is the maxim, 
' there is nothing new under the sun !' Argo is the name of the vessel in which the 
mighty voyage was performed. The very beams of Argo (some of them at least) were 
oracular. Duly consulted, they gave directions though, probably, not so plain as 
those of the compass, to which, after all, this tale may be a traditional allusion. 
Tiphys was the pilot; and the greater part of the crew consisted of kings and demi- 
gods : nay, the very vessel itself, if we may believe the celestial globe, was at last 
docked in heaven among the stars. Of this glorious ship's company, Hercules was 
one, as was Hylas, hereafter mentioned the favourite of the hero and the pet plaything 
of the nymphs. The surgeon to the ship was iEsculapius. I need not add that Jason 
was the hero, and Medea the heroine of the adventure ; the opera house, and the two 
short lived Malibran, have told us this.. Though marble cold to us, this tale of 
antiquity, when skilfully managed, seems to have produced a wild and solemn feeling 
in the ancient mind. 

Note 43, page 36, ver. 36, 37. 

' Neptunian Ilium,' 

' Nestor, and inexorable Achilles, again king of kings Agamemnon.' 

The Iliad and Odyssey of Pope have made the tale of Troy familiar to the English 
reader, to whom the names of Nestor, Achilles, Agamemnon, and the rest, are from 
boyhood familiar. I have occasionally heard some most warm and animated disputes 
relative to the comparative merits of the different personages of this poem ; and have 



72 NOTES ON THE FOURTH PASTORAL. 

almost feared, that over the contested reputation of the departed heroes, a combat 
would ensue as fierce and vehement as that of the Greeks and Trojans over the dead 
body of Patroclus. We laugh at these follies, and yet at times may feel tempted to 
exclaim, 

' O noctes coenaeque Deum !' 

Note 44, page 36, ver. 39. 

' Argosy more, nor mariner more, nor shrewd supercargo.' 

' Mine argosies from Alexandria 
Laden with spice and silks now under sail, 
Are smoothly gliding down by Candy shore 
To Malta, through our Mediterranean sea.' 

Marlowe's Jew of Malta. Todd. 

Argosy here signifies a large merchant vessel, and in this sense I have used it. 

Note 45, page 36, ver. 40. 

' every where every want shall be warded.' 



That is, fenced off; met with a supply. We may read, if we please, 

' every where every wish shall be satiate.' 

or 

' every where every wish shall be sated.' 

for myself I decidedly prefer the sound of the version in the text. ' Sacrifice to the 
graces' was the advice of the ancient philosopher to his pupil — sacrifice to music 
would be mine, to the hexametrist. The muses and the graces are so nearly allied. 

Note 46, page 36, ver. 44, 45. 

' But turmeric bright shall the lambkin adorn, yea the Indian Arnatta' 
1 Enrobe as it feeds ' 

One would think that Virgil, in ' beatific vision,' had been reading Cervantes : 

' And so it fell out, says Sancho, that in passing through the heavens on Clavileno,' 



NOTES ON THE FOURTH PASTORAL. 73 

' we came close to the place where the seven little she goats are kept, only ask me the' 
' marks of those same goats, and by them you may guess whether I speak truth or not.' 
' Tell us what they were, Sancho, quoth the duchess. Two of them, replied Sancho,' 
' are green, two carnation, two blue, and one motley coloured.' But extravagant as it 
appears, what the poet foretels of the quadruped is actually verified among the birds. 
What colours of the dyer can, in splendour, compare with those of the humming bird, 
when glancing through the air in the bright sunshine of its native sky? Sarranian red 
means the Tyrian purple, Surr was the ancient name of Tyre. The sandaracha, or 
sandarach, seems to be a vermilion colour. 

Note 47, page 36, ver. 47, 48. 

' Thrice dread, stable, slow, those fates firm fixed, and for ever, 

1 Hurrying the ages, haste hasten exclaim as the spindle is whirling.' 

A monstrous fiction, which, from its incredible absurdity, loses all power over the 
modern reader, except perhaps that of exciting a smile; for, from the sublime to the 
ridiculous, is only a step. These awful beings, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, were 
supposed to govern our destiny, and this, in a manner, as droll as it was extraordinary, 
one held a distaff, another formed the thread, a third cut it away, the faster the thread 
was spun the quicker the events hurried; but it is hardly worth while inquiring further 
into such consummate nonsense. The idea is well illustrated by Grey'3 weird sisters, 
weaving being substituted for spinning. We may read, if we please, 

' Thrice dread, stable, slow, those fates firm fix'd, adamantine, 
Hurrying the ages, haste hasten exclaim as the webbing is weaving.' 

Note 48, page 36, ver. 50. 

' Oh son, great image of the father,' 

1 Magnum Jovis incrementum,' the father, the Almighty father, Ju-pater, pater 

omnipotens ; these were distinguishing names of the supreme being among the 

Romans. 

' Cara deum suboles magnum Jovis incrementum.' 

Like that ascribed to the emperor Constantine, had the version here given been made 
with evangelical views, the line might have been turned in a more striking manner, 
without wandering far from the original. 

L 



74 NOTES ON THE FOURTH PASTORAL. 

' Only begotten arise ! Oh son ! bright image of the father.' 

The coldest sceptic must admit that in the whole pastoral there are striking apparent 
allusions to the immediate coming of the Messiah ; but in a pagan poet, such vene- 
rable language might seem to be a desecration, and I forbear to use it. 

Note 49, page 36, ver. 53. 

' Yea, this world, and the powers therein sing aloud at thy coming.' 

Or we may read, 

' Yea, this world and the fullness thereof at thy coming rejoiceth. 
Yea, this world and the powers therein thy coming rejoiceth. 
Yea, this world and the powers therein sing loud at thy coming. 
Nature through all her beautiful works sings loud at thy coming. 
Nature through all her beautiful works thy coming rejoiceth.' 



Note 50, pages 36, 37, ver. 56. 

' Threician Orpheus, 
' Linus, nor thine shall resound; though the muse, though the godhead abounding, 
' Calliopea her Orpheus aid, loved Linus Apollo. 
' Ador'd by the shepherds tho' Pan' 

Bards of ancient days, whose songs, like those of the Hebrew prophets, were sup- 
posed to be replete with physical and moral wisdom ; so that to the pagan mind the 
allusion must have been both solemn and affecting. So Milton, 

' blind Maeonides, 
' And Tiresias and Phineus prophets old.' P. L. 

Linus was supposed to be the son of Apollo, and Calliopea, the muse, was the reputed 
mother of Orpheus. Pan, being the favourite god of woods and shepherds, was not 
likely to meet in them with judges ready to award the crown to his mortal rival, unless 
the victory were complete indeed. I ought to have observed above, of the word 
' statelier,' v. 56, that the comparative has the same kind of force as in such expres- 
sions, es the following £ Done in his better manner.' We may, if we please, read state- 
liest, but the sound is rough and sibilant. 



NOTES ON THE FOURTH PASTORAL. 



Note 51, page 37, ver. 61, 62. 

' Begin then beautiful boy, thy lovelier mother beholding 
' Smiling to own,' 

1 Incipe parve puer risu cognoscere matrem.' There is in the original an ambiguity 
purposely left in the version, which may refer indifferently either to the smile of the 
mother or the child. Hercules is said to have laughed when forty days old. I have 
myself heard distinctly the little laugh of an infant under forty days of age, respond- 
ing to the smiles and caresses of its beautiful mother: it was the most interesting little 
laugh I ever heard ; the sneeze of Catullus's cupid, and the sobs and tears of Ovid's 
dishevelled love, when his own dear Tibullus perished prematurely, in my opinion, 
were not to be compared to it. 

Note 52, page 37, ver. 63, 64. 

' Begin, then, beautiful boy, oh smile ! nor, thy manhood maturitig, 
1 Hebe her charms, nor Jove shall deny those feasts of the Godden.' 

That is Hebe shall disdain to receive him to her couch, and Jove disdain to admit 
him to the banquet. So I have ventured to turn it, or we may read the. lines thus, 

' by maternal smiles unbehelden, him - 
' Hebe, nor deigns, nor Olympian Jove, high guest of the godhead.' 

Godden like brethren is a Teutonic plural, in sound at least, preferable to our short 
snappish hissing 5. So they say Gottenbergh for the hill or city of the gods. 

By the whole passage the poet seems to signify, that to be beheld by the lovely 
mother without smiles must be to the infant inauspicious indeed. A progeny so 
unfortunate, far from realizing the magnificent vision of this prophecy, could never be 
expected, like Hercules and other heroes of mythic antiquity, to win his way to the 
mansions of Olympus ; to repose at last on the couch of Hebe, or recline, in glory, at 
the banquet of the gods. 



NOTES ON THE SIXTH PASTORAL. 

Note 53, page 41, ver. 1. 

' First in the pastoral strain Syracosian measure, disporting.' 

Theocritus seems to have been the coryphaeus, or great leader of the choir of pasto- 
ral poets ; indeed there is a oneness, a warmth, an easy and natural relation of part to 
part in his idylls, which makes one feel at once that they are no copies, but thrown 
out fresh from the mind, like metal from the mould, still manifesting a certain 
heat to the touch. But though Theocritus take the first place amongst the Grecian 
eclogists ; among the Romans, Virgil claimed to be leader ; one of his purposes 
seeming to be to convince his countrymen, that their native language, notwith- 
standing opinions to the contrary, was really capable of moving in melodious cadence to 
the Dorian flute. Before Virgil, none seem in Latin to have attempted the pastoral ; 
or none with success ; and notwithstanding the exceptions of Bavius, and Maevius, his 
cotemporaries and successors, appear to have held the opinion that he succeeded in his 
venturous essay. 

Note 54, page 41, ver. 2. 

' Mine, nor disdaining the woods or the wilds, pipes sweetly Thalia.' 

Thalia, one of the Muses, said to have presided over festivals and pastoral poetry, 
was represented under the form of a beautiful female, with a mask in one hand, and a 
crook in the other, leaning in meditation upon a column. 

Note 55, page 41, ver. 5. 

' . . . The dirge and the ditty.' 



NOTES ON THE SIXTH PASTORAL. 77 

That is pastoral poetry, whether grave or gay; sorrowful or jocund. Or we may 
read : 

Widen but swell to a slenderer strain thy rural recorder, 

Note 55, page 41, ver. 6, 7. 

* . . . and the tears and the battle 
1 Varefull many a bard shall record, impassioned recording.' 

or we may read, " and the groans and the battle." 

Who Varus was is not quite clear, that his name has not fallen down to be buried 
amongst the ruins of past ages, he owes not to the favour of an emperor, or the accla- 
mations of an army, but the gratitude of the man whose early merit he had the 
sagacity to discover, and the benignity to patronize. He seems to have been one of 
Virgil's earliest protectors. 

Note 56, page 41, ver. 11. 

' Nor lsmenian Apollo.' 

Notwithstanding their heroick patronymics, the Greeks, to designate the individual 
man, had in general one name, and one name only, (at least one only was used at once,) 
but to the appellatives of their different divinities there was no end ; and when in their 
invocations the roll had been called over, there was still superadded some saving 
clause : 

whatever thy name. 

hence the numerous epithets of Apollo, and that of lsmenian among the rest, Apollo 
was so called from a temple in Bceotia, on the borders of the Ismenius. 

Note 57, page 41, ver. 12. 

' Radiant a name more honoured beholds those volumes adorning.' 

There was afterwards a noble library at Rome open to the public ; like those which 
honour and adorn the British metropolis. It was very properly dedicated to the god 



78 NOTES ON THE SIXTH PASTORAL. 

of light ; nor is it improbable that even at the time when the pastoral was written, 
a project so praiseworthy might be inchoate, and give rise to the verse, of which a 
version is here given : 

Quam sibique Vaii proscripsit pagina nomen. 
Radiant a name more honour'd beholds those volumes adorning. v 

hence I have ventured to use the demonstrative " those" it helps the metre. 

Note 58, page 41, ver. 13. 

. . . ' Two fauns, in a grotto reposing 
' Silenus lazy-lolling beheld, to slumber abandon 'd ;' 

The names of these two rural deities of no interest in our sera, but venerated, I sup- 
pose in Virgil's days, were Chromis, and Mnesilus. With respect to Silenus, usually 
mounted upon an ass, the readiest notion of his unwieldy abdominal figure, and vinous 
habits, may be obtained by figuring to oneself seated a cheval, on his wine keg, a mo- 
dern Bacchus, enlarged and metamorphosed at once into a greyheaded old fellow, 
without change in the jolly proportion of the figure, or removal from the cask. In his 
external appearance at least, he was a strange God to worship ; but the extent of his 
knowledge seems to have redeemed, in some measure, the gross, and sensual parts of 
his character. It may be, there was some secret key, which explained away the ab- 
surdity of adoring such a being, but such as I have described him, he seems to have 
had his due share of reverence, his festivals, his priests, his sacrifices and his votaries. 

Iacchus, is the Virgilian word for Bacchus, and here, of course, stands for the wine, 
which he patronized. 

Note 59, page 41, ver. 20, 21. 

' Syracosian Aigle 
' Naiad nor lovelier appears ; — ' 

Or we may read 

' Supervenient Aigle.' 

All nature was animated in the mythology of antiquity, and the pious pagan might 



NOTES ON THE SIXTH PASTORAL. 79 

chance to meet some lovely and divine form, near every spring, and stream, and grove. 
The Naiads, with their fresh and flowing urns, presided over the wells, and rills, and 
among them, the fairest, and apparently the gayest, was Aigle. Altogether, the group 
is charming. The wine-oppressed and ancient God, the vigorous youths, in all the 
strength and lustihood of health, peering with a mixture of archness and awe, at their 
own notable exploit, and the gay and charming Aigle, with her mirth, and her mul- 
berries, would form altogether, an admirable subject for the pencil of a Poussin. 



Note 60, page 42, ver. 26. 

. . . ' They bowed and adored him.' 

For the convenience of the metre, I have substituted this hemistich ; the original 
thought runs thus : 

. . . ' Simul incipit ipsi 
. . 'so saying he begins,' 

the change is hardly worth noticing. 

Note 61, page 42, ver. 29, 30. 

' Not on JEmonian rocks more sweet Rhodopeian Orpheo ; 
' Not more sweet than Pierian choir Parnassus rejoicing.' 

iEmonia — Rhodope — mountains, savage in their nature ; but sweet and hexame- 
trical in their names. It is needless to remark, that by the Pierian choir, the choir of 
the muses is intended. Mount Pierus in Thessaly was supposed to be their favorite 
haunt. In what follows, one might almost persuade oneself, that the patriarch Noah 
was speaking, when he too had partaken a little too largely of the juice of the grape. 
I should prefer reading Parnasso for Paruassus. 

Note 62, page 42, ver. 38. 

' Aery the cloud now hovered aloft, showers sweetly distilling : ' 

For before the creation, neither sky nor cloud existed ; and now it was, under the 
omnific influences, that the vapours and mists first appeared floating on the new 
formed heavens. 



80 NOTES ON THE SIXTH PASTORAL. 

Note 63, page 42, ver. 41. 

' Thence the Deucalian deluge,' 

An inundation of vast, though partial extent, supposed to have devastated wide 
spreading regions of Greece about three thousand two hundred years ago. In a part of 
the earth very liable to earthquakes ; that vast, though partial, deluges should occur 
is not very surprising, the ruin of a mountain might lay open a lake like the Ontario, 
or by choking the river channels, and confining the waters, might convert into an 
inland sea, a country once fruitful and inhabited. Similar effects on a smaller scale 
have been produced in the valley of Chamouni, by the mere precipitation of an ice- 
berg. However we explain it, tradition seems to testify, that repeated deluges had 
occurred in those regions seated about this part of the Mediterranean ; nor is it im- 
probable, that with these traditions, truths should mingle, derived from the remem- 
brances of that universal catastrophe, which covered at once with waters the whole 
surface of the globe. Though some more partial inundation is probably intended, the 
modern reader may help his imagination, by recalling to mind the deluge of Noah. 

Note 64, page 42, ver. 41. 

. . . ' thee sceptred Saturne '• 

The reign of Saturn; an aera of primeval simplicity and innocence. Laying aside 
celestial power and glory, Saturn fleeing from the presence of his rebellious son, took 
refuge in Italy, in ages vastly remote ; and applied himself to the truly godlike office 
of humanizing mankind. 

Note 65, page 42, ver. 47. 

' Torn of Caucasian vultures, and thee, Promethean Titan.' 

Prometheus, the friend of man, and according to some mythologists his creator, 
interposing for the promotion of human happiness, drew down upon himself the ven- 
geance of Jupiter ; and, though himself a God, was chained to a desolate rock of the 
Caucasus, and exposed to a horrid vulture, that daily tore open his liver, which was 
continually reproduced to furnish the dreadful meal. The Titans were deities of the 
most ancient order : by Juvenal, Prometheus is so called, Sat. XIV. ver. 35. 



NOTES ON THE SIXTH PASTORAL. 81 

Note 66, page 42, ver. 43. 

' Carolling now, whatever the fount, where lost and for ever 
1 Hylas, the heroes recall ' 

One of the Argonauts, Hylas, a beautiful youth, when bending over a deep and 
clear stream in Mysia, seems to have fallen into the water, and to have been drowned. 
The accident, is an ordinary one, but by the luxuriancy of the Greek imagination, it 
has been expanded and ornamented, till it is become a very charming fiction, and 
poets, and painters, have rivalled each other, in representing the thrice happy misfor- 
tunes of Hylas, who was beloved of the beautiful Naiads, and carried away with 
gentle violence, to their halls beneath the deep. His companions, unacquainted with 
his fate, in shouting for his recall, made the shores resound with his name. If Sile- 
nus told his story, as well as Sheherizade would have done, there are few that have 
read the Arabian nights who would not have wished to make one in the auditory. 

Note 67, page 42, ver. 46. 

' . deploring he mourns . . .' 

The silly story, of which however the art of the poet has made so much, is little 
more than the fairy fiction of La belle et la bete in a more ancient form. The Cretan 
queen, in a strange fit of monomonia, fancied she was enamoured of this ruminating 
animal; as the Argeian maids the daughters of Praetus, under analogous aberration, 
took it into their heads that they were transformed into heifers, and were in danger of 
being yoked like oxen to the plough. The Gortynian folds seem to have been on one 
side of the island, and the city of Minos, the royal consort of the queen on the other. 
A circumstance which aggravated the cruel unkindness of the creature, and heightened 
the distress of the belle. What egregious folly, and yet what beautiful poetry, for 
the muses, like the sun in the west, from clouds and vapours can by their glorious ir- 
radiations produce a magnificent world of light and splendour, giving to airy nothing 
a local habitation and a name. 

Note 68, page 43, ver. 61, 

' Now; the auriferous garden and gold thy bane Atalanta.' 

The human mind, the mind of the poet at least, delights in contemplation to dwell 

M 



NOTES ON THE SIXTH PASTORAL. 

upon gardens : the gardens of Armida ; the gardens of Ada ; the gardens of the Hespe- 
rides ; and last and most nobly our lost inheritance, in the grandeur of Hebrew simpli- 
city called the garden of God. x 

The garden of the Hesperides, according to Hesiod, was placed beyond the ocean ; 
where the gloomy genius of Dante had raised his purgatory. If the discovery of the 
Americas has laid waste the lovely Hesperian gardens of the Greek, it has too des- 
troyed the terrific gothic structures of the Italian, so that we must not complain. In 
these gardens, wherever seated, delicious fruits abound, and apples of gold thick on 
the boughs invite the hand of all who approach, but are guarded by a monstrous ser- 
pent. Of these apples, the hero Hercules obtained three, and Hippomanes receiving 
them from Venus, and throwing them artfully before the feet of Atalanta, as she con- 
tended with him in the race, distracted her attention, and arrived first at the goal. 
The Arcadian maid was the reward of his success, but her marriage, like other unions, 
of which gold has been the moving cause, proved remarkably unhappy. 

Note 69, page 43, ver. 63. 

' Carolling now, those ill-starred Nymphs.' 

The Phaetonti'ades here alluded to were the sisters of that celebrated son of Phoebus, 
who rashly attempted to guide for one day the chariot of the sun. He soon lost all 
control of his glorious coursers, was hurried beyond the limits of the solar path, and 
set the whole universe on fire. Struck down headlong by the thunderbolts of Jupiter, 
he fell flagrant and hissing into the Po, and his sisters bewailing his loss, took root 
on the banks of the river, and were transformed into poplars according to some mytho- 
logists ; alders according to Virgil. In this version, I have adhered to my author, though 
most English readers I imagine will prefer the spiry poplar, as an emblem of the female 
form. Virgil, to give elegance to his image, has added to his alders, the epithet" pro- 
ceras," spiry; this communicates a little of the poplar character. What the cypress 
is in the eastern poetry, our poplar may be in that of the west. 

Note 70, page 43, ver. 64. 

' And how by Aonian streams, thy fountain brim Hippocrene.' 
Gallus the friend, and protector probably of Virgil, (if indeed the two characters can 



NOTES ON THE SIXTH PASTORAL. 83 

be blended), seems to have translated into the Roman language, the Greek poem of 
Euphorion of Chalcis, celebrating the sacred grove of Grynaea, an iEolian town of 
Asia Minor. His work appears to have been received with no small applause, and 
Virgil, whose benignity and merit rendered him inaccessible to envy, evidently taking 
a pleasure in the poetical successes of his friend, has here, perhaps, with some little 
incongruity introduced him to our notice, as welcomed, and honoured by the whole 
choir of the Muses. The poet indeed maybe condemned for this, for it has the air of 
an anachronism, but who can condemn the man. I like Davie Ramsay well for 
his love of chronometers, but I should not have liked him worse, if on the occasion 
of his daughter, Mistress Margarets marriage, instead of standing by the pen- 
dulum with his last pellet, he had been standing by the bride with his first benedic- 
tion. Aonia was the ancient name for the highlands of Boeotia; where rise the holy 
mountains of Helicon and Cithseron, and where the poetical waters of Hippocrene 
then flowed, and flow still. Of Orpheus and Linus I have spoken before, they may 
rank in the mind, in relation to the pagan system, in the same order as the great He- 
brew prophets in our own, Hesiod is intended by the poet of Ascra, a village of Bceotia, 
the reputed place of his birth. Probably in writing his poem, Gallus had imitated 
with success the Hesiodian style and manner. 

Note 71, page 43, ver. 67. 

' Ancient of days how that dread bard Threician Orpheo.' 

In the original it is Linus ; but Orpheus is better known to the English reader, and 
it makes better metre. Isaiah or Jeremiah, the difference is much the same. Orpheo 
instead of Orpheus, to elude the eternal hissing of the esses, and gagging of our final 
consonants. 

Note 72, page 43, ver. 74. 

' Boots it Megarian Scylla to ted, or who too renowned,' 

Of the Scyllas, there were two known to the mythologists, the daughter of Typhon, 
and the daughter of Nisus. The daughter of Nisus, king of Megara, fell in love with 
Minos the king of Crete. She saw him from the walls "terribly beautiful," besieging 



84 NOTES ON THE SIXTH PASTORAL. 

the city, the absence of smoke and fire arms, and the near approaches to the defences, 
rendered such romantic accidents not unlikely in days gone by. The father, of course, 
was sacrificed to the favourite ; and Scylla, by pulling away during sleep a single 
golden hair from the locks of her parent, gave the town to the enemy ; for the invio- 
lability of that single hair was the palladium which alone rendered the city secure. 
Minos was celebrated for justice, so that Scylla's fate may be guessed. 

The other Scylla, (the daughter of Typhon), less criminal and more lovely than her 
namesake, was however more unhappy, Circe the enchantress becoming her rival. 

. Who knows not Circe 
The daughter of the Sun . . 

She poisoned with magic herbs, the fountain where the beautiful Scylla was accus- 
tomed to bathe : and on plunging into the dire bath, while the rest of her person 
remained unchanged in all its pristine loveliness, her body in its inferior parts was 
suddenly metamorphosed with enormous and horrid deformity, and became haunted by 
monstrous dogs ever yelling. In his description of sin, Milton had this fable in view. 
Scylla in despair, precipitated herself into the strait, which separates the Sicilian 
and Italian shores ; where, opposite the gulf of Charybdis, she stands at this day a 
formidable rock, for to this, by a further and more happy transformation, she seems to 
have been metamorphosed at last. In ancient days, the sailors shipwrecked on this 
strait were supposed to be devoured by her dogs. According to the mode of reading 
the original, with or without the particle " aut," the line may be made to refer or not, 
to one or both these ill-starred heroines. 

Quid loquar aut Scyllam, nisi aut quam fama secuta est. 
is the reading I have preferred. 



Note 73, page 43, ver. 78. 

' Or how the barbarian monarch he told; thee, miserable Tereo ;' 

Tereus a barbarian and a Thracian, living in semi-cannibal times, and offending his 
queen past forgiveness, she in a fit of phrensy, served up to him at a banquet his own 
dear child Itys in a dish . . . would that such enormities had always been fabulous. 



NOTES ON THE SIXTH PASTORAL. 85 

At the close of the entertainment, the frantic queen threw in to him as a sort of grace 
gift, or parting present, the fair but bloody head of the boy ; and, with her sisters, 
flying from the enraged father towards the desert, they were all transformed, Philo- 
mela becoming a swallow according to some fabulists, and a nightingale according to 
others. If the song of the nightingale is not mournful, I am sure it has reason to be 
so, at least in sonnets ; for all the western poets seem to have agreed that the charming 
songster is no other than the too guilty Philomela. I read Tereo, (the Italian reading) 
for the sake of the music. 

Note 74, page 43, ver. 82. 

' All, whate'er on the laurelled shore, once radiant Apollo 

' Chaunted ; and ravished Eurota recalled, to the echo commending.' 

On the banks of the Eurotas, the celebrated city of Sparta once stood. On the 
shores of this river, Apollo, according to the poet, had often sung to his lyre the won- 
derful mythic tales, with which the song of Silenus abounded : and on those shores, 
the laurel, the favourite tree of the god of light, seems to have flourished in exube- 
rance. Eurota for Eurotas. 

1 All whate'er by the laurelled shore once radiant Apollo.' 

Why should we not read " laurelly ? " we say " woody, grassy, flowery ; " the line 
would then flow more musically, thus : — 

' All whate'er by the laurelly shore, once radiant Apollo.' 

Note 75, page 43, ver. 86. 

• Ocean.' 

As Olympus, a name venerable to the pagan, has lost its power of moving the 
mind with deepness and solemnity; I have substituted the name and image of the 
Ocean, tempted in part I acknowledge by the fine mesobrach spondee, with which this 
word closes the song. 



NOTES ON THE TENTH PASTORAL. 

Note 76, page 47, ver. 2. 

' while lovely Lycoris.' 

The cruelty of Lycoris seems to be intimated in her very name, had her nature par- 
taken more of the dog than the wolf, she would not have been so unfaithful. When 
the Athenians upon the approach of the Persians deserted their city, and conveyed 
their effects, old men, wives and children, to Salamis and Traezen, a dog belonging to 
Xantippus an illustrious Athenian, not bearing to be left behind, leapt into the sea 
and swam along by the side of the galley till he reached Salamis and there expired ; 
the Athenians erected a monument to him called the dog's grave — Plutarch's, Life 
of Themistocles. 'Tis a pretty Grecian story, but the galley must have been a log of a 
sailer : and after all why did they not take the animal into the galley ? the fact is most 
prominently characteristic of the men, the dog, and the biographer. But in some of 
these instances it must be admitted where moral instincts are in question, juxtaposi- 
tion with the dog is as much to be feared as hydrophobia, though there is little fear 
of our catching the contagion. 

Note 77, page 47, ver. 4. 

• Galle thou child of song,' 

Gallus a Roman knight, advanced by Augustus to great employments, was distin- 
guished for his political and military talents as well as a tender vein of poetry. This 
able minister however fell, perhaps deservedly, into disgrace, and forgetful of the admi- 
rable maxim of antiquity, that a truly great man should be tried in both fortunes, he 
laid violent hands upon himself and perished. 



NOTES ON THE TENTH PASTORAL. 87 

Note 78, page 47, ver. 4, 5, 6. 

' . . . then smile oh smile Arethusa, 
1 So may thy soft sweet stream flow on and eternally flow on 
' Under the Nacrian wave nor blend with the brine of the billow.' 

The Alpheus is a river, which rising in the mountainous country in the middle of the 
Morea (the ancient Peloponesus), flows westward to the Ionian sea. A strange 
opinion prevailed that the waters of the Alpheus passing beneath the waves without 
mingling, rose fresh in the island of Ortygia, a small spot scarcely detached from the 
mainland of Sicily, and formed there the fountain of Arethusa ; floating bodies thrown 
into the Alpheus would, it was asserted, re-appear in the fountain. These physical 
materials in the hands of the Grecian mythologists were wrought with their usual ease 
and elegance into a wild romantic story ; and the priests and minstrels told to all who 
would listen, how the nymph of Diana was bathing in the waters of Alpheus; how the 
god became enamoured of her charms, how he closely pursued her flying footsteps, 
over the lands of Elis, how the nymph sinking with fatigue, and not refreshed by the 
warm breath of her pursuer, now felt or imagined to be felt upon her shoulders, was 
rescued by the power of Diana, melted down into water, sank into the earth, and flitted 
under sea to rise a fountain on the Sicilian shore, yet not unmingled with the waters of 
the inexorable Alpheus, who followed in the same channel, and welled forth at the 
same spring. It seems therefore according to this wild story, that the waters of the 
Arethusa came under sea from Greece. 

Tri-nacria was an ancient name of Sicily. 

Note 79, page 47, ver. 11, 12. 

' . . . Aonian summits nor aspiring 
' High where Pindus frowns ; nor thy fountain brim Aganippe.' 

Aonia — Pindus — Aganippe — all haunted by the Muses to whom they were sacred. 

Note 80, page 47, ver. 15. 

' Mainalo mourn' d ; him mourn' d the chill-cold caves of Lycaon.' 
Mountains of Arcadia, I have endeavoured to obtain a little music from these names. 



88 NOTES ON THE TENTH PASTORAL. 

Note 81, page 47, ver. 18. 

' Beautiful once by the stream led his flock the all-lovely Adonis.' 

That Adonis should quit the company of the queen of beauty for the healthful and 
animating pleasures of the chase seems pardonable enough, and this is the more com- 
mon legend. Virgil however to accomodate the image to his love sick friend, here re- 
presents the lovely boy in the more languid character of the shepherd. The tale of 
Adonis is too well known to require telling, his beauty, the favour of the Cyprian 
goddess, his death by the rude tusk of the boar, and the river in Phoenicia that annually 
ran red with his blood, and was long honoured with his name. In Syria he was dis- 
tinguished by the appellation of Thammuz, and to him our great poet alludes, in a way 
as characteristic of the puritanical Englishman as the line translated in the pastoral is 
characteristic of the elegant Roman, 

Note 82, page 47, ver. 2Q. 

' Wet with the wintery mast hither came dew drippy Menalcas.' 

Mast and acorns were some of the delicacies of the golden age ; Menalcas the 
herd seems to have been engaged in gathering them for his cattle, in the fresh and 
dews of the morning. In their religious processions, Sylvanus and Pan were most 
probably adorned as the poet describes Sylvanus with the crown ; Pan with the red- 
dened lips and cheeks. To us who are not solemnized by these rustic rites, the image 
may appear trivial enough. 

Note 83, page 48, ver. 45. 

' Vainly, oh vainly for love me mailed, me red with the slaughter.' 

It is but just to my author to remark that the military images are here a little more 
coloured than in the original. Virgil has been blamed by the critics for using these 
images at all, for in a pastoral poem, swords ought to be beaten into ploughshares, and 



NOTES ON THE TENTH PASTORAL. 89 

spears into pruning hooks. As he is, therefore, already in the wrong ; I thought myself 
justified in making the most of the offence, and getting out of it all the music I could, 
for to take a Cervantic, not to say a Virgilian liberty, and use an image certainly not un- 
pastoral the sheep as the lamb, — what is it ? 

vox quoque Mcerin 
Jam fugit ipsa : lupi Moerin videre priores. 

Note 84, page 48, ver. 52, 53. 

' Away, whatever in happier hours Chalcidian numbers 
' Carolling resounded, again will I breathe to the shepherds commending. ' 

For the allusion necessary to the full comprehension of this passage, see sixth pas- 
toral, ver. 64, Note 70. The verses referred to (those of Euphorion the Chalcidean), 
Gallus had either translated or imitated in the Roman tongue, with great and general 
applause. This poem, written probably in another form, and of other colours, he now 
proposes to turn into the style of the pastoral, in the hope by this pursuit, of distracting 
his thoughts from his troubles, as Byron, under his vexations sought to relieve a dis- 
turbed mind by turning to the study of the Armenian language. 

In the whole of the following passage, the levity, mutability and distraction, together 
with the sudden collapse after excitement of a mind mollified by " the passion," are 
most vividly and saliently portrayed. Violent passions and an unsettled mind are so 
nearly allied, — 

Ira furor brevis est. 

Note 85, page 49, ver. 59. 

' . . . the Parthenian forests are awakening.'' 

Parthenius was a mountain of Arcadia, where in his sorrow, Gallus is feigned to be. 
The Cretan archery was in high estimation, and Lyctus was a city of Crete or Candia 
now Lapiti. 

N 



90 NOTES ON THE TENTH PASTORAL. 

Note 86, page 49, ver. 67, 68. 

' Nought, though we drink of the streams where the chill-cold Hehrus is rolling, 
' Braving the snow, Sithonian storms.' 

The Hebrus was a river of Thrace, and Sithonia was a broad province in the same 
region. The ancients seem to have looked upon the inhospitable and chill inclemency 
of this country with a sort of horror : Demosthenes, when Philip of Macedon was en- 
gaged there in a winter campaign, speaks of the king as having plunged himself into 
a sort of dungeon-cavern : but let the reader think of Siberia, and he will catch the 
cold warm image at once. 

Note 87, page 49, ver. 70, 71. 

' . . . the Arabian folds, self -exiV d for ever. 
1 Eros is Lord — almighty he reigns — let us bend and adore him.' 

Of Arabia nothing need be said, the Simoom and the fiery desert are known to all. 
Eros is a name for the god of Love, and the line, on a pagan mind would, I presume, 
have really tended to produce a sentiment of pious resignation, for Cupid was so- 
lemnly worshipped ; and I may repeat in closing, a remark before made, I mean, that 
a strong religious feeling, though misdirected, pervades the eclogues throughout, and 
that our total insensibility to this, must in the ancient poetry, desecrate and destroy 
much that would otherwise most deeply and powerfully act upon the mind. 



VARIATIONS OF THE SIXTH PASTORAL. 

5 Widen but swell to a slenderer strain, thy rural recorder 

. . . the sprightly recorder. 
8 Piping I muse no loftier strain than 

. . . theme than the .... 
12 Radiant a name more honoured beholds the volume adorning. 
15 Flowers enwreathed, new fallen from the brow, lay blooming beside him. 
18 Seizing, for promised in vain, those songs their longing eluded. 
20 Frolic and free to encourage the sport supervenient Aigle. 
22 Stains with the ensanguined mulberry, the god all playfully staining. 
25 Songs ye require, to songs give ear, with songs he rewarded. 
3i Loftiest he, the interminable. 
34 Plastic, and earth's slow gathering. 

40 Exploring amazed, wide scattered appear the beasts on the mountains. 
42 Torn of Caucasian vultures and thee Titanic Prometheus. 
47 Lovely as miserable, ah ! what fury, what daemon assails thee. 
49 Wandering lowed, but to deeds so dire such hallucination. 

52 Lovely as miserable, ah ! while thou in the desert art roving. 

53 He on his side, ruminating at ease where hyacinths blooming. 

62 And carolling now those ill-starred nymphs ; and the bark amber weeping. 

63 Enfolding around transforming he rears airy towering alders. 

airy spiry alders, 
aspiring alders. 
65 Hallowed and all the Aonian choir uprising received him. 

forth rose to receive him. 



92 VARIATIONS OF THE SIXTH PASTORAL. 

71 Charming the oaks of the forest obeyed forth led from the mountains. 
71 Charming the wide spread forest obeyed forth led from the mountain. 
78 Or how the barbarian monarch he told ill-starred transformation. 

84 Enchanting he sang to the stars the reverberant vallies resounded. 

85 Numbering his flock, till the shepherd was seen in the gray of the evening. 

86 Gathered and nights pale planet advanced in the azure Olympus. 

. . and nights pale planet was hung in the azure Olympus. 
. . and high pale Hesperus hung in the azure Olympus. 



NOTE. 

Since these sheets were committed to the press, there has appeared in the Eclectic 
Review of last April (1838), a learned, lucid, and original article, upon the subject of 
the classical metres both English and ancient. To this excellent tract I beg leave to 
refer the reader for much valuable information, merely again observing, that the great 
purpose of the English hexametrist is to produce a flow of sound similar to that which 
arises from the sonorous measures of antiquity ; and to train, as far as may be, the na- 
tional ear first to perceive, and afterwards to relish and judge with taste and accuracy, 
the more refined forms of the verse. With this purpose his task begins and ends, and 
accomplishing this, whether he violate or respect the rules of ancient accent and quan- 
tity, he has succeeded. Let me again too remark, that the imperfection of first at- 
tempts need not deter. In the arts all first attempts are imperfect, perfection emanates 
from perseverance, and perseverance from public encouragement. 



FINIS. 



C. WHITTIXGHAM, TOOKS COUtlT, CHANCERY LANE. 



